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LIBRAEY 


Theological   Seminary 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


c^     BS  650  .D37  1875 

Dawson,  John  William,  1820 
She        1899. 
Boi     Nature  and  the  Bible 


f 


NATURE    AND   THE   BIBLE. 


UNIFORM  WITH  THIS   VOLUME. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  POSITIVISM.  A  Series  of 
Lectures  to  the  Times  on  Natural  Theology  and  Apologetics. 
By  James  McCosh,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  Princeton 
College.     12mo.    $1.75. 

I  "  In  the  present  as  in  preceding  defences  of  her  divine  origin,  Christi- 
anity finds  in  her  ranks  the  men  demanded  by  the  time.  Among  those  who 
have  been  foremost  in  her  service,  Dr.  McCosh  holds  an  honorable  place.  A 
large  part  of  his  life  has  been  devoted  to  the  study  and  the  discussion  of  the 
main  questions  involved  in  the  debate  between  the  Positivists  and  Materi- 
alism on  the  one  side  and  spiritual  Christianity  on  the  other. 

"This  book  grapples  directly  with  the  vital  questions.  Every  reader 
must  admire  its  fairness.  It  is  all  the  better  adapted  to  popular  reading 
from  having  been  written  to  be  delivered  to  an  audience.  Indeed,  the 
thinking  is  generally  so  clear,  and  the  style  so  animated  and  luminous,  that 
any  person  of  average  intelligence  and  culture  may  understand  and  enjoy 
the  discussion ;  and  no  such  person  who  has  begun  to  read  the  work  will  be 
likely  to  rest  satisfied  till  he  has  finished  it.  It  is  in  some  parts  eloquent 
and  beautiful,  and  is  throughout  forcible  and  effective  for  its  end.  Would 
that  thousands  of  the  young  people  of  our  country,  and  of  all  classes  whose 
faith  may  be  in  peril,  might  read  it  with  the  attention  it  deserves."  — 
Independent. 

CHRISTIANITY    AND    SCIENCE.      A   Series   of 
Lectures.    By  Rev.  A.  P.  Peabodt,  D.D.,  of  Harvard  College. 

$1.75. 

"  One  of  the  best  books  we  have  read  in  a  long  time,  —  a  manly,  candid, 
noble,  reasonable  defence  of  the  Christian  faith.  "We  do  not  see  how  any 
thoughtful  person  can  read  it  in  vain.  Dr.  Peabody  plants  himself  fairly  on 
the  very  postulates  of  scientific  men,  and  proceeds  to  show  how  all  that  they 
claim  for  true  science  is  fulfilled  in  the  religion  of  Jesus.  The  three  sources 
of  proof  from  which  scientific  men  draw  —  testimony,  experiment  (or  expe- 
rience), and  intuition  —  are  made  to  render  their  tribute  to  Christianity,  and 
in  a  way  which,  while  necessarily  brief,  is  nevertheless  so  compact  and  clear 
and  forcible  as  to  be  thoroughly  conclusive.  A  warm  heart  as  well  as  a 
clear  head  shines  through  these  pages,  and  occasionally  lights  up  the  calm 
reasoning  with  a  gem  of  brilliant  beauty."  —  Illustrated  Christian  Weekly. 


ROBERT  CARTER  &  BROTHERS. 


Nature  and  the  Bible, 


SI  Course  of  Lectures 

Delivered  in  New  York,  in  December,  1S74, 
on  the 

MORSE    FOUNDATION    OF   THE    UNION 
THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 


BY 


J.  W.  DAWSON,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  F.G.S., 

Principal   and    Vice-Chancellor    of    McGill    University,   Author    op 

"Archaia,"  "Acadian  Geology,"  "The  Story  of 

the  Earth,"  &c. 


NEW   YORK: 

ROBERT  CARTER  AND  BROTHERS, 

530  Broadway. 

i375- 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 

ROBERT  CARTER  AND  BROTHERS, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  "Washington. 


Cambridge : 
Press  of  John  Wilson  &>  Son. 


PKEFACE. 


The  subject  assigned  to  the  Lectureship 
founded  by  the  late  Professor  Samuel  F.  B. 
Mouse,  LL.D.,  —  "The  Relations  of  the  Bible 
to  the  Sciences,"  —  is  one  of  so  wide  scope 
that  any  full  or  exhaustive  treatment  of  it  in 
a  course  of  six  lectures  would  be  impossible. 
I  have  therefore  restricted  myself  to  the  con- 
sideration of  some  of  those  points  of  contact 
of  Natural  and  Physical  Science  with  the 
Bible,  which  are  now  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance and  interest,  with  reference  more  es- 
pecially to  present  controversies. 

Some  of  these  subjects  I  have  already 
treated  in  greater  detail  in  my  work  entitled 
"Archaia,  or  Studies  of  the  Cosmogony  and 
Natural  History  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  "  # 
but  in  these  Lectures,  though  less  fully  dis- 
cussed, they  are  brought  up  to  the  present 
state  of  knowledge. 

*  London  and  Montreal.     1860. 


6  PREFACE. 

It  should  be  under  stood  that  the  stand- 
point of  the  writer  is  not  that  of  a  theolo- 
gian or  a  metaphysician,  but  of  a  student 
of  Nature,  who,  while  he  has  been  chiefly 
occupied  with  investigations  and  teaching  in 
Natural  Science,  has  been  a  careful  and  rev- 
erent student  of  Holy  Scripture,  not  with  the 
view  of  supporting  therefrom  any  particular 
school  of  theology,  but  of  learning  for  his  own 
spiritual  guidance  the  mind  of  God.  He  can 
sympathize  alike  with  those  scientific  students 
who  are  repelled  from  the  Scriptures  by  cur- 
rent misapprehensions  as  to  their  teachings, 
and  with  those  Christians  who  regard  the  ad- 
vance of  Science  with  some  degree  of  dread, 
as  possibly  hostile  to  religion ;  and  will  be 
thankful  if  he  can,  to  any  extent,  guide  either 
to  a  better  position  in  relation  to  the  word 
and  works  of  God,  and  to  a  better  use  of  both 
with  reference  to  their  own  higher  welfare. 

J.  W.  DAWSON. 

January,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Preface   5 


LECTURE  I. 

General  Relations  of  Science  to  the  Bible       .  11 

Nature  of  the  Subject     .     .     . 11 

Relations  to  Revelation  in  General 20 

Monotheism  and  the  Unity  of  Nature     ....  27 

Law,  Order,  Use,  and  Plan 30 

LECTURE  II. 

Biblical  Views  of  the  Universe  as  a  Whole     .  47 

The  Heavens 47 

The  Atmosphere  or  Expanse 51 

The  Planetary  and  Starry  Heaven 64 

The  Third  Heaven C9 

LECTURE  III. 

The  Science  of   the  Earth  in  Relation  to   the 

Bible 77 

Generalizations  of  Geology 79 

Creative  iEons  of  Genesis 84 

Order  of  Creation  as  compared  with  Geology       .  88 


8  CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  IV. 

PAGE 

The    Origin    and    History    of   Animal   Life   in 

Nature  and  the  Bible 113 

Origin  and  History  of  Life  in  Genesis  ....  114 

Origin  and  History  according  to  Geology  .     .     .  117 

Physical  Theories  of  Life 126 

Theories  of  Derivation  of  Species 132 

LECTURE  V. 

The  Origin  and  Early  History  of  Man,  accord- 
ing to  Science  and  the  Bible 149 

Testimony  of  Geology 149 

Antiquity  of  Man 159 

Relation  of  Pre-Historic  Man  to  Modern  Races  .  103 

Comparison  with  Biblical  History 175 

LECTURE  VI. 

Review  of  Schools  of  Thought 185 

Sceptical  Philosophies 186 

Materialistic  Science 191 

Evolutionist  Archaeology 201 

Modified  Christianity 210 

Appendix 

A.  Animal  Nature  of  Eozoon 223 

B.  Testimony  of  Palaeontology  with  regard  to 

Derivation  of  Species 225 

C.  Additional  Facts  relating  to  Primitive  Man  241 

D.  The  Biblical  Deluge .  250 

E.  Prof.  Pritchard's  Views 251 

Index 255 


LIST     OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PLATE  PAGE 

I.  (Frontispiece)  Eozoon  Canadense. 

II.  Microscopic  Structure  of  Limestones     .  82 

III.  Crumpled  Laurentian  Rocks 97 

IV.  PSILOPHYTON,  A    SlLURIAN   PLANT     ....  107 

V.  Primordial  Animals 118 

VI.  Mesozoic  Reptiles 123 

VII.  SlVATHERIUM,  A  MAMMAL   OF    THE   MlOCENE  140 

VIII.  The  Mammoth  and  his  Contemporaries  .  152 

IX.  Prehistoric  Skulls 164 

X.  Mammoth  carved  on  Ivory 170 


NATURE    AND    THE   BIBLE. 


LECTURE    I. 

GENERAL   RELATIONS   OF   SCIENCE   TO   THE 
BIBLE. 


Nature  of  the  Subject.  — Relations  of  Science  to 
Revelation  in  General.  —  Monotheism  and  the 
Unity  of  Nature.  —  Law,  Order,  Use,  and  Plan  in 
Nature  and  in  the  Bible. 

O  CIENCE,  it  has  been  said,  "  discloses  the 
method  of  the  world,  but  not  its  cause ; 
religion,  its  cause,  but  not  its  method." # 
There  is  much  truth  in  the  distinction,  but  it 
does  not  contain  the  whole  truth,  else  it  would 
be  comparatively  easy  to  draw  a  line  between 
the  domains  of  religion  and  science,  which  rea- 
sonable men  would  have  no  desire  to  trans- 
gress. The  truth  is,  however,  that  science 
does,  through  its  ideas  of  unity  and  correla- 

*  Martincau. 


12  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

tion  of  forces,  and  the  evidence  of  design  in 
organic  structures,  not  obscurely  point  to  a 
First  Cause,  and  that  religion  as  embodied  in 
Holy  Scripture  does  affirm  method  in  nature. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  uniformity  of  nature 
has  a  tendency  to  create  a  prejudice  in  the 
minds  of  scientific  men  against  what  they 
term  divine  intervention ;  and  narrow  views 
of  religion  tend  to  attribute  to  God  an  arbi- 
trary and  capricious  action,  not  in  harmony 
with  either  science  or  the  Bible. 

Again,  the  Bible  states  a  fixed  and  distinct 
dogma  as  to  creation,  while  science  in  its  con- 
templation of  the  method  of  nature  is  pro- 
gressive, and  continually  changing  its  point  of 
view.  The  Bible  stands  like  some  great  hoar 
cliff,  which  to  the  theologian,  accustomed  to 
view  it  always  from  one  point,  presents  no 
change  except  that  which  results  from  the 
vicissitudes  of  sun  and  shade,  winter  and  sum- 
mer ;  but  to  the  scientific  thinker,  drifting  on 
.the  current  of  discovery,  its  outline  may  per- 
petually change.  It  is  natural  to  the  one 
observer  to  believe  that  there  is  only  one 
aspect  which  can  be  true ;  while  it  is  equally 
natural  to  the  other  to  think  that  the  form  of 
the  cliff  is  liable  to  many  mutations,  or  that 


SCIENCE  TO   THE  BIBLE.  13 

it  may  even  be  a  mere  bank  of  cloud,  which 
some  strong  wind  of  discussion  may  dissipate 
altogether.  In  contradistinction  to  both  these 
extreme  views,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Christian 
student  of  nature  to  endeavor  to  ascertain  for 
any  given  position  in  the  study  of  the  method 
of  the  world,  what  are  its  actual  points  of  con- 
tact with  revelation,  and  to  expose  such  mis- 
conceptions as  may  have  arisen  from  partial 
and  imperfect  notions  of  either. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  our  subject,  when 
viewed  in  this  way,  does  not  lie  in  the  central 
or  essential  spheres  of  either  Natural  Science 
or  Theology,  but  rather  on  the  frontier  or 
debatable  land  between  them.  The  natural- 
ist may,  and  indeed  ought,  to  regard  nature  as 
independent  of  the  religious  beliefs  of  men.^^ 
It  is  his  object  by  his  own  proper  methods  to 
ascertain  facts  and  principles,  and  this  without 
being  turned  from  his  course  by  any  apparent 
antagonisms  with  doctrines  held  to  be  true  on 
other  grounds.  Without  granting  him  this 
freedom,  his  testimony  even  in  favor  of  relig- 
ion would  be  valueless;  and,  by  attempting 
to  deny  it  to  him,  he  is  placed  in  an  attitude 
of  opposition  to  religion.  So  the  Christian, 
reverencing;  the  word  of  God  as  something 


14  GENERAL   RELATIONS   OF 

standing  altogether  above  and  apart  from  hu- 
man science,  and  dealing  with  the  most  momen- 
tous interests  in  a  way  to  which  science  cannot 
attain,  may  hold  himself  altogether  indepen- 
dent of  either  its  aids  or  oppositions.  He  may 
either  take  the  simple  position  of  the  hymn 
which  says, — 

"  I  am  not  skilled  to  understand 

What  God  hath  willed,  what  God  hath  planned  : 
I  only  know  at  his  right  hand 
Stands  one  who  is  my  Saviour." 

Or,  with  more  full  appreciation  of  the  com- 
plexity of  the  questions  involved,  he  may  adopt 
the  confession  of  Guizot :  — 

"  I  believe  in  God  and  adore  him,  without  at- 
tempting to  comprehend  him.  I  see  him  present 
and  acting  not  only  in  the  permanent  government 
of  the  universe  and  in  the  innermost  life  of  men's 
souls,  but  in  the  history  of  human  societies,  especi- 
ally in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  —  monuments 
of  the  Divine  Revelation  and  action  by  the  media- 
tion and  sacrifice  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  for  the 
salvation  of  the  human  races.  I  bow  before  the 
mysteries  of  the  Bible  and  the  gospel,  and  I  hold 
aloof  from  scientific  discussion  and  solutions  by 
which  men  have  attempted  to  explain  them.  I 
trust  that  God  permits  me  to  call  myself  a  Chris- 
tian, and  I  am  convinced  that  in  the  light  which  I 


SCIENCE   TO  THE  BIBLE.  15 

am  about  to  enter  we  shall  fully  discern  the  purely 
human  origin  and  vanity  of  most  of  our  dissensions 
here  below  on  divine  things." 

The  man  of  science  must  thus  be  left  un- 
fettered by  religious  dogma ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Christian  has  too  sure  evidence  of 
his  faith  and  hope,  to  be  shaken  by  any  ap- 
parent inconsistencies  with  science.  Practi- 
cally, however,  we  must  not  forget  that  the 
votary  of  science  cannot  as  a  man  dispense 
with  religion,  and  that  the  Christian  may  im- 
pair his  own  influence,  or  injure  the  cause  he 
desires  to  promote,  by  want  of  acquaintance 
with  the  position  of  scientific  inquiry  in  his 
day.  It  is  also  true  that  a  large  mass  of  per- 
sons who  are  neither  men  of  science  nor  Chris- 
tians may  be  perplexed  or  seriously  injured 
by  misunderstandings  on  this  subject. 

Above  all,  those  who  aim  to  be  Christian 
teachers  should  be  fully  armed  to  contend  for 
the  truth,  and  should  have  a  clear  and  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  the  weapons  and  tactics 
which  may  be  employed  against  it.  They  should 
also  comprehend  the  habits  of  thought  of 
specialists  in  science  and  their  followers,  and 
the  aspects  in  which  religious  truth  may  pre- 
sent itself  to  their  minds.    Further,  they  should 


16  GENERAL  RELATIONS  OF 

be  prepared  to  take  broad  views  of  tbe  rela- 
tions between  spiritual  and  natural  things, 
and  should  have  their  minds  attuned  to  the 
harmonies  which  exist  in  God's  revelations  of 
himself  in  nature  and  in  his  word.  Other- 
wise they  must  fail  to  attain  to  the  highest 
usefulness,  or  to  be  worthy  expounders  of  a 
revelation  from  him  who  is  at  once  the  God 
of  nature  and  of  grace. 

There  is  thus  in  this  debatable  ground 
between  science  and  religion  a  large  field  of 
profitable  study ;  and  this  more  especially  at 
a  time  when  our  literature  is  filled  with  crude 
and  shallow  references  to  such  subjects;  and 
when  the  utterance  of  views  at  variance  with 
both  natural  and  revealed  religion  is  more 
bold  and  open  than  perhaps  at  any  previous 
time. 

As  an  example  of  what  I  mean,  I  may  take 
an  illustration  from  an  address  recently  deliv- 
ered on  a  public  occasion  in  a  Scottish  univer- 
sity, and  by  a  man  of  some  scientific  standing. 
He  is  reported  to  have  said :  — 

"  Clergymen  and  most  religious  teachers  are 
totally  insensible  to  the  errors  and  discrepancies 
of  language  they  use  in  the  pulpit ;  so  that,  when 
the  scientific  man  takes  his  place  in  church,  he  is 


SCIENCE   TO  THE  BIBLE.  17 

surprised  at  the  manifest  ignorance  of  established 
truths  constantly  preached  to  the  people.  As  a 
single  illustration  of  this,  let  me  remind  you  of  a 
beautiful  hymn  with  which  all  of  us  have  been 
acquainted  from  childhood,  and  which  is  still  sung 
in  our  churches.  It  is  the  one  which  commences, 
'  The  spacious  firmament  on  high  ; '  and  after  refer- 
ring in  separate  verses  to  the  sun,  moon,  stars, 
and  planets,  says,  in  the  fifth  verse,  — 

1  What  though  in  solemn  silence,  all 
Move  round  the  dark  terrestrial  ball,'  &o. 

"  But  there  is  no  one  among  this  audience  whose 
knowledge  has  not  convinced  him  that,  so  far  from 
the  sun  and  the  heavenly  bodies  moving  round  the 
earth,  or  •  terrestrial  ball,'  the  earth  and  planets  in 
fact  move  round  the  sun.  If  Addison,  the  author 
of  this  hymn,  had  consulted  a  scientific  friend,  and, 
instead  of  the  •  dark  terrestrial,'  had  substituted 
the  '  splendid  solar '  ball,  the  hymn  would  have 
sung  just  as  well,  and  would  have  had  the  advan- 
tage of  being  right  instead  of  wrong,  would  not 
have  shocked  our  convictions  of  truth,  and  tended 
to  destroy  the  respect  that  really  educated  men 
ought  to  have  for  religious  instruction." 

At  first  sight  this  is  trifling  enough,  but  it 
was  not  a  mere  random  thrust.  Addison's 
hymn  is  one  which  has  been  much  esteemed 
by  Christians.     It  is  one  of  live  hymns  selected 


18  GENERAL   RELATIONS   OF 

by  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland  to  be 
appended  to  the  Psalter,  and  it  is  a  paraphrase 
or  free  translation  of  the  19th  Psalm.  I  take 
it,  therefore,  as  an  example  of  a  species  of 
attack  on  Christianity  winch  is  to  be  found 
everywhere  in  our  current  literature,  and  as 
an  illustration  of  points  of  contact  between 
science  and  the  Bible,  and  of  false  and  true 
ways  of  treating  them. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is  some 
truth  in  the  accusation  of  deficient  scientific 
accuracy  in  the  pulpit.  Illustrations  derived 
from  science,  and  references  to  scientific  dis- 
coveries and  opinions,  are  often  so  wide  of  the 
mark  as  to  provoke  a  smile  or  to  excite  in- 
dignation, according  to  the  disposition  of  the 
hearer ;  and  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  progress  of  science  is  so  rapid  that  what 
seemed  the  most  profound  learning  a  few  years 
ago,  may  to-clay  be  merely  an  exploded  fallacy 
or  an  obsolete  theory. 

Nor  is  the  hymn  free  from  ground  of  criti- 
cism, in  its  assertion  that  all  the  heavenly 
orbs  move  round  this  "  dark  terrestrial  ball ;  " 
but  it  is  curious  and  instructive  that  the 
emendation  of  the  scientific  critic  is  equally 
faulty,   for,  though   the   planets  move   round 


r 


SCIENCE   TO    THE  BIBLE.  19 

the  "  splendid  solar  ball,"  the  stars  do  not,  — 
a  singular  exemplification  of  the  difficulty  of 
avoiding  error  even  in  the  most  simple  scien- 
tific statements,  when  these  are  expressed  in 
poetical  language,  or  used  in  illustration  of 
spiritual  truths. 

But  what  of  the  old  Hebrew  poet  whose 
production  has  led  to  all  these  difficulties? 
Did  he  go  astray  in  his  astronomy,  or  did  he 
avoid  altogether  the  scientific  snares  amidst 
which  it  seems  he  was  treading  ?  We  shall 
find  that  he,  looking  altogether,  at  natural 
appearances,  and  sublimely  ignorant  of  any 
theory,  has  avoided  the  blunders  both  of  his 
copyist  and  his  critic:  — 

11  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  ; 
And  the  expanse  proclaimeth  his  handiwork. 
Day  nnto  day  uttereth  speech, 
Night  unto  night  showeth  knowledge. 

In  them  hath  he  set  a  tabernacle  for  the  sun, 

Which  is  as  a  bridegroom  coming  out  of  his  chamber, 

And  rejoiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race. 

His  going  forth  is  from  the  end  of  the  heaven, 

And  his  circuit  unto  the  end  thereof  ; 

And  there  is  nothing  hid  from  his  heat." 

This  language  is  bold  and  poetical ;  but  it 
affords  no  peg  whereon  to  hang  any  criticism 


20  GENERAL  RELATIONS  OF 

similar  to  that  to  which  the  modern  poet  has 
subjected  himself. 

My  notice  of  this  little  matter  is  not  a 
digression.  It  is  at  once  an  example  of  the 
superiority  of  the  Bible  to  the  attacks  levelled 
against  it,  and  of  the  fact  that  the  friends  of 
the  Bible  needlessly  provoke  these  attacks ; 
and  it  further  raises  the  question,  What 
have  we  a  right  to  expect  of  a  divine  reve- 
lation in  its  treatment  of  nature  ?  and,  How 
does  that  treatment  stand  related  to  modern 
science  ?  To  the  answers  to  these  questions 
I  shall  devote  the  remainder  of  this,  intro- 
ductory lecture,  and  shall  discuss  :  first,  the 
most  general  aspects  in  which  the  Bible  is 
related  to  science ;  secondly,  the  connection 
between  the  Bible  and  science  arising  from 
the  relation  of  monotheism  to  our  conceptions 
of  the  unity  of  nature  •  and,  thirdly,  the 
connections  arising  from  the  ideas  of  law, 
order,  and  plan  in  nature  which  are  common 
to  the  Bible  and  to  science. 

Relations  of  Science  to  Revelation  in  general. 

Here  we  may  begin  with  the  broad  general 
statement  that^we  have  no  right  to  expect 


SCIENCE   TO  THE  BIBLE.  21 

any  direct  revelation  from  God  either  of 
natural  facts  or  principles,  except  in  so  far  as 
these  may  be  necessary  to  define  our  relations 
to  him ;  but  natural  facts  known  to  men  may 
be  employed,  and  indeed  must  be  employed,  to 
illustrate  the  spiritual  truths  which  it  is  the 
function  of  revelation  to  state  and  enforce. 
The  facts  and  laws  of  nature  are  open  to 
observation,  experiment,  calculation,  and  rea- 
soning, and  do  not  need  to  be  revealed  to 
man,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
stimulus  given  to  the  human  mind  by  divine 
revelation  has  been  one  of  the  strongest  in- 
centives to  the  study  of  nature.  A  revelation 
of  natural  laws  prematurely  —  that  is,  before 
the  human  mind  of  itself  rises  to  their  compre- 
hension —  would  be  useless  or  injurious  ;  and,  if 
we  could  conceive  a  revelation  of  a  perfect 
science,  this  would  be  inaccessible  to  all  but 
a  few  trained  and  gifted  minds,  if,  indeed,  it 
could  be  rendered  intelligible  to  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  revelation  of  a  rudimentary 
and  imperfect  science  would  be  unworthy  of 
God,  and  would  require  continual  correction 
as  knowledge  advanced.  The  field  of  reve- 
lation lies  in  a  different  domain,  —  that  of 
spiritual   things,  —  wherein  science  confesses 


22  GENERAL  RELATIONS  OF 

itself  at  fault,  and  admits  that  it  has  reached 
the  boundaries  of  the  unknowable.  Perhaps 
there  can  be  no  surer  test  of  a  true  revelation 
from  God  than  to  ask  the  question,  —  Does  it 
refuse  to  commit  itself  to  scientific  or  philo- 
sophical hypotheses,  and  does  it  grasp  firmly 
those  problems  most  important  to  man  as  a 
spiritual  being  and  insoluble  by  his  unassisted 
reason  ?  This  attitude  of  non-committal  as  to 
the  method  of  nature  and  the  secondary  causes 
of  phenomena  is,  as  we  shall  see,  eminently 
characteristic  of  the  Bible. 

Here  we  may  pause  for  a  moment  to  con- 
sider an  analogy  and  *a  difference  between 
religion  and  science  in  this  most  general 
aspect.  God  may  be  said  to  reveal  science 
to  man  as  well  as  religion ;  but  he  reveals 
science  by  raising  up  gifted  minds  to  interro- 
gate nature  and  to  work  out  a  knowledge  of 
her  laws.  He  reveals  spiritual  truths  directly, 
through  his  own  appointed  messengers.  Both 
kinds  of  truth  emanate  from  God,  and  are 
conveyed  through  human  minds.  But  science 
is  the  effort  of  the  human  intellect  to  compre- 
hend natural  things,  while  revelation  is  the 
comprehension  of  spiritual  things  poured  from 
above  into  the   mind   of   man.     The   one    is 


SCIENCE   TO   THE  BIBLE.  23 

continually  changing  and  enlarging  its  boun- 
daries :  the  other  remains  where  it  was,  until 
a  new  afflatus  of  the  Divine  Spirit  comes  upon 
man.  Science  laboriously  draws  water  from 
the  deep  well  of  truth.  Revelation  pours  it 
down  on  the  parched  earth  in  showers  from 
heaven. 

But,  if  we  inquire  more  closely,  we  shall 
find  that  there  are  two  somewhat  dissimilar 
aspects  in  which  the  Bible  as  a  revelation  from 
God  has  treated  nature,  and  in  which  its  re- 
lations to  science  are  distinct  from  each  other. 

The  Bible  frequently  refers  to  natural  facts 
as  illustrations  of  spiritual  truths,  asserting 
thereby  an  analogy  between  the  natural  and 
spiritual  worlds.  Where  it  does  this,  the 
accuracy  of  its  references  is  remarkable, — 
unexampled  in  so  far  as  I  know  in  any  other 
literature.  We  are  not,  however,  required  to 
assign  this  accuracy  to  any  direct  revelation 
of  natural  truth  to  the  minds  of  the  writers; 
since  it  is,  in  part  at  least,  explicable  by  sec- 
ondary causes,  which  are  themselves  instructive 
as  illustrating  the  bearing  of  true  notions  of 
God  on  our  knowledge  of  nature.  Such  sec- 
ondary causes  are  the  following :  1.  The 
habits  of  a  people  familiar  with  nature  and 


24  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

drawing  their  images  from  it  rather  than 
from  art  or  previous  literature.  In  our  arti- 
ficial state  of  culture,  it  is  difficult  to  appreciate 
this  condition  of  the  minds  of  primitive  poets 
and  religious  writers.  It  might  be  better  for 
us  if  we  were  to  freshen  our  own  minds  more 
than  we  do  with  similar  influences.  2.  The 
absence  of  all  tendency  to  theorize  or  to  frame 
hypotheses,  and  the  direct  reference  of  all 
effects  to  the  will  of  God.  3.  The  absence  of 
that  superstition  which  makes  natural  objects 
the  basis  of  mythology,  and  connects  them 
with  imaginary  gods  and  demons.  Properly 
speaking,  there  is  no  mythology  in  the  Bible, 
because  this  is  excluded  by  its  monotheistic 
theology.  4.  The  veneration  for  natural  truth 
developed  among  a  people  who  regarded  all 
nature  as  an  emanation  from  the  one  God. 
The  Hebrew  could  not  regard  natural  objects  as 
sacred  to  particular  divinities,  but  he  thought 
of  all  things  as  a  material  expression  of  the 
power  of  God,  and  therefore  as  in  a  sense 
sacred. 

To  whatever  extent  attributable  to  such 
causes,  we  find  both  in  the  shorter  refer- 
ences to  nature,  and  in  such  larger  and  more 
elaborate  compositions  as  the  concluding  chap- 


SCIENCE  TO   THE  BIBLE.  25 

ters  of  Job,  a  treatment  of  nature  worthy  of  a 
revelation  from  God,  and  whose  minute  accu- 
racy is  constantly  being  confirmed  by  the  re- 
searches of  scientific  travellers. 

But  there  is  another  point  of  contact  of  the 
Bible  with  nature  to  which  such  explanations 
do  not  apply  to  the  same  extent.  In  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  we  find  an  obvious  attempt 
to  give  the  method  of  creation,  or  at  least 
its  order  in  time.  This  narrative  of  creation 
trenches  on  the  domain  of  science,  and  refers 
to  matters  not  open  to  direct  observation.  It 
must,  therefore,  be  a  revelation  from  God,  or 
a  result  of  scientific  induction  or  philosophical 
speculation,  or  a  mere  myth. 

If  such  a  narrative  of  creation  should  prove 
so  accurate  as  to  stand  the  test  of  facts  dis- 
covered long  after  it  was  written,  and  of  scien- 
tific principles  not  established  or  thought  of 
at  that  early  time,  this  would  in  itself  be  a 
most  powerful  proof  of  its  divine  origin.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  it  commits  itself  to  false 
statements,  it  has  stamped  its  origin  as  human, 
and  will  so  far  sink  to  the  level  of  many 
other  ancient  books  of  obsolete  science  and 
philosophy.  On  this  point,  as  we  shall  see  in 
the  sequel,  recent  investigations  have  left  no 


26  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

room  for  doubt.  The  order  of  creation  as 
stated  in  Genesis  is  faultless  in  the  light  of 
modern  science,  and  many  of  its  details  pre- 
sent the  most  remarkable  agreement  with  the 
results  of  sciences  born  only  in  our  own  day. 
As  examples,  I  may  mention  the  distinction 
between  the  origin  of  light  and  of  luminaries, 
the  origination  of  the  first  animals  from  the 
waters,  and  the  creation  of  the  higher  land 
animals  and  man  on  one  creative  clay.  These 
and  many  other  features  could  scarcely  have 
occurred  to  the  unassisted  thought  of  a  writer 
of  so  great  antiquity.  This  is  a  severe  test 
for  the  Bible,  —  one  from  which  many  of  its 
friends  seem  to  shrink  ;  but  we  shall  see  in 
the  sequel  how  it  endures  it,  and  why  it  was 
necessary  that  it  should  be  subjected  to  it. 
In  the  mean  time  I  wish  to  enforce  the  im- 
portant principle  that,  with  respect  to  the  his- 
tory of  creation  and  the  subsequent  references 
to  it,  we  cannot  rest  in  the  general  statement 
that  the  Bible  is  not  intended  to  teach  science, 
any  more  than  we  can  excuse  inaccuracy  as  to 
historical  facts  by  the  notion  that  the  Bible 
was  not  intended  to  teach  history. 


SCIENCE   TO   THE  BIBLE.  27 

Monotheism  and  the  Unity  of  Nature. 

The  Word  of  God,  as  the  revelation  of  the 
one  God,  the  Creator,  has  some  special  and 
direct  relations  with  nature,  arising  not  only 
out  of  its  own  monotheistic  position,  but  out 
of  the  errors  and  superstitions  of  ancient  relig- 
ions, and  the  constant  tendency  of  humanity 
to  fall  back  upon  secondary  divinities. 

One  of  these  arises  from  the  worship  of 
natural  objects,  or  of  spirits  supposed  to  haunt 
or  to  be  connected  with  them,  which  prevailed 
in  heathen  antiquity,  and  still  exists  so  largely 
among  barbarous  and  semi-civilized  nations. 
When  men  have  lost  or  are  losing  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  God,  and  are  not  enlightened 
by  the  ideas  of  causation  which  spring  from 
science,  they  are  naturally  affected  with  a 
superstitious  dread  of  the  powers  of  nature, 
whether  apparently  injurious  or  beneficial  to 
them.  Hence  the  thunder-storm,  the  tornado, 
the  volcano,  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  great 
river,  become  gods  or  symbols  of  gods;  and 
this  may  proceed  to  other  idolatries  of  animals 
or  of  deified  men.  Thus,  from  mere  supersti- 
tion may  arise  a  systematized  polytheism, 
which  in  every  stage  of  growth  or  decay  is 


28  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

subversive  of  all  high  religious  aims,  and 
reduces  man  below  the  level  of  the  things  and 
forces  of  which  he  was  intended  to  be  the 
lord  and  master ;  while  it  shuts  out  from  him 
the  higher  glories  of  the  true  God,  and  the 
higher  spiritual  ends  of  his  own  being.  From 
this  state  it  was  necessary  for  revelation  to 
raise  man.  Hence  we  find  the  great  Hebrew 
law-giver,  in  the  beginning  of  Genesis,  grasp- 
ing the  whole  material  of  heathen  idolatry, 
whether  in  the  heavens  above  or  the  earth 
beneath,  and  bringing  it  within  the  compass 
of  his  monotheistic  theology;  and  this  testi- 
mony to  the  unity  of  nature  pervades  the 
whole  of  the  Bible.  Hence,  also,  he  places 
man  on  the  throne  of  creation,  as  its  lord 
under  God,  and  lays  beneath  his  feet  all  the 
created  things  which  the  blinded  nations  wor- 
ship. 

This  one  vindication  of  God  and  man  from 
the  debasing  thraldom  of  superstition  is  a  vast 
achievement  of  revelation ;  and  when  wre  con- 
sider the  prevalence  of  idolatry  wherever  the 
Bible  is  unknown,  even  in  our  own  time,  and 
the  tendency  even  of  cultivated  men  to  fall 
into  fetichism,  gross  materialism,  or  pantheism, 
we  cannot  be  too  thankful  for  this  great  fiber- 


SCIENCE   TO   THE  BIBLE.  29 

ation  achieved  by  the  Bible  for  all  who  will 
believe  in  it  as  a  revelation  from  Gocl.  Even 
science  has  a  right  here  to  express  its  obliga- 
tions to  the  Bible ;  for,  had  this  not  already 
taught  the  unity  and  uniformity  of  nature,  it 
is  doubtful  if  we  would  yet  have  emerged 
from  the  crudities  of  Greek  philosophy,  or 
would  have  achieved  many  of  the  great  scien- 
tific triumphs  of  modern  times. 

Another  aspect  of  a  monotheistic  revelation 
is  its  obligation  to  hold  God  responsible  for  all 
nature.  It  cannot,  like  the  superstition  of  the 
heathen,  relegate  the  destructive  and  carnivo- 
rous animals,  the  storm,  the  earthquake,  or  the 
volcano,  to  the  dominion  of  malignant  demons. 
These  terrible  agencies,  as  well  as  the  benefi- 
cent light  and  heat  and  gentle  rain,  must  be 
the  works  of  the  good  God.  Science  itself 
has  in  modern  times  relieved  us  from  some 
part  of  this  difficulty ;  but  when  we  consider 
how  hard  it  was  for  the  wisest  minds  of  hea- 
then antiquity  to  advance  so  far,  and  when 
we  find  even  our  modern  philosopher,  John 
Stuart  Mill,  avowing  that  the  apparent  evil  in 
nature  and  in  man's  estate  seemed  to  him  too 
great  to  permit  him  to  believe  in  a  God  at 
once  beneficent  and  omnipotent,  we  can  bet- 


30  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

ter  appreciate  the  boldness  of  the  stand  in 
favor  of  unity  taken  by  the  Scriptures,  when 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  before  the 
fall  of  man,  they  affirm  that  the  darkness  and 
the  light,  the  water  and  the  land,  the  fierce 
tanninim  and  .  the  harmless  cattle,  are  alike 
the  workmanship  of  the  same  Almighty  hand. 
Yet  we  can  see  that  no  other  course  was  con- 
sistent with  a  monotheistic  theology,  and  that 
this  alone  could  fully  rescue  man  from  the 
abject  superstition  which  bows  before  the 
malicious  or  capricious  unknown.  We  shall 
have  to  return  to  this  question  of  apparent 
evil  in  nature  ;  but  in  the  mean  time  the  treat- 
ment of  it  in  the  Bible  presents  itself  as  a 
remarkable  instance  of  adherence  to  the  unity 
of  the  cosmos. 

Law,    Order,    Use,  and  Plan  in  Nature   and  the 
Bible. 

The  monotheism  of  the  Bible  logically  re- 
quires that  it  shall  hold  to  uniformity  in  the 
operations  of  God,  to  order  and  progress  in 
his  works,  to  a  regard  to  use  and  purpose, 
and  to  a  definite  plan  in  all  his  procedure. 
These  great  principles,  always  distinctly  main- 
tained in  Holy  Scripture,  have  been  still  more 


SCIENCE   TO    THE  BIBLE.  31 

prominently  brought  before  the  minds  of 
men  by  the  growth  of  modern  science,  and 
establish  some  very  interesting  and  important 
points  of  contact. 

1.  The  Bible  is  at  one  with  science  in 
affirming  the  constancy  of  natural  law.  God 
has  made  "  a  decree  for  the  rain,  and  a  way 
for  the  lightning."  He  has  enacted  the  "or- 
dinances of  heaven."  "  He  hath  established 
the  heavens  for  ever.  He  hath  made  a  decree  . 
which  shall  not  pass."  The  uniformity  of 
nature  as  under  natural  law,  expressing  the 
will  of  the  unchangeable  Creator,  is  as  certain 
a  dogma  of  Scripture  as  it  is  a  result  of  sci- 
ence. If  the  Creator  is  perfect,  his  action  must 
be  uniform :  any  thing  else  would  be  unworthy 
of  him.  The  extremest  materialist  can  claim 
nothing  for  natural  law  which  the  Bible  does 
not  claim  for  the  will  that  changes  not,  the 
power  that  "fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary."  * 
Nor  can  even  the  pantheist  claim  any  closer 
indwelling  in  nature  for  his  mechanical  all- 
pervading  essence  than  the  Bible  claims  for 
its  personal  God.  x 

The  Bible,  it  is  true,  is  anthropomorphic  in 
its  mode  of  speaking  of  God,  and  necessarily 

*  Isa.  xl.  28. 


32  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

so,  —  for  it  must  speak  in  the  tongues  and  to 
the  hearts  of  men,  —  but  avoids  the  attribution 
of  caprice  and  changef  ulness  to  him,  as  much  as, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  avoids  the  other  extreme 
of  converting  him  into  a  mere  inexorable  and 
mechanical  fate. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  miracle  and  of 
prayer  ?  Simply  this,  that  the  Bible  as  a 
revelation  from  God  takes,  and  must  take,  a 
broader  ground  here  than  that  of  the  sceptic. 
Even  the  materialist  must  admit  that  practi- 
cally he  exists  in  the  midst  of  miracles,  or  of 
processes  that  he  can  by  no  means  either  fully 
account  for  or  control.  He  often  finds  him- 
self in  the  presence  of  difficulties  which  he 
cannot  surmount,  and  the  overcoming  of  which 
would  seem  to  him  miraculous.  Yet  he  knows 
that,  with  more  knowledge  and  power,  he  could 
overcome  them,  and  this  without  contravening 
natural  laws.  If  he  is  aware  of  any  specialist 
who  knows  more  than  he  does  of  those  things 
which  he  cannot  master,  he  naturally  applies 
to  him  for  aid  or  counsel.  He  knows  very 
well  that  if  there  exists  any  chief  engineer  of 
the  universe,  who  knows  all  its  powers  and 
properties,  such  a  person  could  work  miracles 
without  end,  by  new  correlations  of   forces 


SCIENCE    TO   THE  BIBLE.  33 

and  matter ;  and  if  we  could  have  access  to 
such  a  person,  he  might  instruct  us  and  help 
ns  to  do  almost  any  thing  with  matter  and 
force.  Therefore  every  man  who  believes  in 
matter  and  force  and  natural  law  must  logi- 
cally believe  in  the  possibility  of  miracle  and 
the  efficacy  of  prayer,  provided  that  there  is 
an  architect  of  the  universe,  and  that  we  can 
obtain  access  to  him. 

Bible  miracles  do  not  involve  the  suspen- 
sion of  natural  laws,  but  only  arrangements 
under  these  laws,  or  the  operation  of  unknown 
laws ;  which,  however,  may  be  as  inexplicable 
to  us  as  if  they  were  contraventions  of  law. 
Prayer,  in  the  Scriptural  sense  of  it,  is  an 
appeal  to  One  whose  knowledge  of  and  power 
over  his  own  works  are  capable  of  effecting  re- 
sults to  us  not  only  impossible,  but  inconceiv- 
able. In  maintaining  the  possibility  of  mira- 
cle and  the  power  of  prayer,  along  with  the 
unchangeable  law  of  God,  the  Bible  is  thus  on 
higher  scientific  ground  than  that  of  any  of 
those  who  call  these  in  question. 

An  idea  seems  prevalent  both  among  scien- 
tific and  unscientific  persons,  that  there  is 
something  derogatory  to  God  in  limiting  his 
power  by  natural  law,  and  that  ewery  effect 

3 


34  GENERAL   RELATIONS   OF 

explained  by  a  natural  cause  removes  the 
influence  of  God  further  back,  until  at  last, 
by  the  reference  of  all  things  to  law,  he 
shall  be  quite  eliminated  from  the  universe. 
Whether  we  look  at  this  notion  from  the  point 
of  view  of  science  or  of  Scripture,  it  is  equally 
absurd.  Law  is  nothing  in  itself.  It  merely 
expresses  the  uniform  exercise  of  some  force 
or  power,  and  if  God  is  the  source  of  the 
power,  then  the  operation  of  the  law  is  merely 
his  uniform  operation.  We  may  indeed  speak 
of  the  law  as  a  voluntary  limitation  of  God's 
power  in  a  certain  direction,  just  as  a  mon- 
arch may  define  or  limit  his  own  power  by 
a  law ;  but  so  long  as  the  law  continues  in 
force,  it  is  his  power  that  acts  by  it,  just  as 
much  as  if  he  were  acting  without  law.  This 
crude  idea  reminds  one  of  a  story  which  He- 
rodotus relates,  to  the  effect  that  the  Egyp- 
tians informed  him  that  they  were  less  in  the 
power  of  the  gods  than  the  Greeks,*  because 
they  depended  for  the  fertility  of  their  lands 
not  on  the  capricious  rains,  but  on  the  annual 
inundation  of  the  Nile.  A  little  more  science 
would  have  informed  them  that  the  rise  of  the 

*  Perhaps  they  meant  merely  the  aetherial  or  weather  gods. 


SCIENCE   TO  THE  BIBLE.  ,35 

Nile  was  itself  dependent  on  the  rains  of 
interior  Africa. 

2.  The  Bible  holds  with  science  the  doctrine 
of  progress  and  development  in  nature.  This 
is  implied  in  the  grand  march  of  the  creative 
work  in  Genesis,  perfecting  first  the  arrange- 
ments of  inorganic  nature,  and  then  those  of 
the  organic  world,  and  in  the  latter  beginning 
with  plants  and  ending  with  man.  It  is  true 
that  the  Bible  carries  this  farther  in  both 
directions  than  scientific  facts  can  yet  do.  It 
goes  back  to  a  "beginning,"  before  any  of  the 
present  arrangements  of  the  earth  were  per- 
fected. It  treats  of  an  arrested  development 
by  the  fall  of  man,  of  a  failure  on  his  "part 
to  enter  into  the  intended  sabbatism  of  the 
Creator,  of  a  world  groaning  under  this 
arrested  development,  of  a  future  new  cre- 
ation when  all  things  shall  be  restored. 

On  this  idea  of  progress,  it  bases  in  the 
main  its  solution  of  the  difficulty,  insoluble  to 
the  gloomy  philosophy  of  Mill,  arising  from 
the  apparent  evils  of  the  past  and  present 
states  of  the  world.  We  know  but'  in  part. 
God  alone  knows  the  end  from  the  beginning. 
His.  plan  is  not  to  be  understood  from  a  little 
part   of   it,  and   this   marred   to   us   by   the 


36  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

aberrations  of  sin.  Nor  are  the  designs  of 
God  to  be  judged  altogether  by  the  criterion 
of  human  advantage,  as  understood  by  us,  any 
more  than  from  the  facts  perceptible  at  one 
point  of  view.  Here  again  the  Bible  evidently 
scans  the  fields  of  nature  and  man  from  a 
higher  stand-point  than  that  of  its  critics. 

Farther,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  idea 
of  progress,  all  along  held  by  the  Bible,  has 
only  recently  been  perceived  by  science. 
The  first  tendency  of  the  great  physical  dis- 
coveries of  this  and  the  last  century  was  to 
lead  to  the  notion  of  an  unvaried  and  unending 
succession.  Only  since  the  rise  and  growth 
of  geology  and  physical  astronomy,  has  the 
idea  of  continued  change  and  progress  fixed 
itself  on  the  minds  of  men.  Now  we  know 
that  in  no  day  is  our  earth  precisely  in  the 
same  state  in  which  it  was  in  the  clay  before, 
that  this  has  been  its  case  throughout  all 
geological  time,  and  that  the  same  law  prob- 
ably applies  to  all  the  heavenly  bodies. 

Science  has,  it  is  true,  with  the  zeal  of  a 
new  convert,  been  led  farther  in  one  direction 
than  the  Bible  can  go ;  and,  under  the  guid- 
ance ^of  certain  philosophical  speculations,  has 
come  to  think  that  there  is  some  necessary 


SCIENCE    TO   THE  BIBLE.  37 

tendency  in  all  things  to  improve,  or  at  least 
to  proceed  from  the  homogeneous  and  indefi- 
nite to  the  heterogeneous  and  definite,  a  prog- 
ress which,  however,  implies  a  beginning  and 
a  finite  consummation,  and  therefore  a  God ; 
but  which,  in  the  bare,  bald  sense  in  which  it 
is  presented  by  the  Spencerian  evolutionists, 
is  no  better  philosophy  than  that  which  we 
may  suppose  to  be  held  by  a  minnow  dwelling 
in  a  reach  of  the  Hudson,  that  all  things  inev- 
itably and  eternally  flow  toward  the  sun. 

3.  A  further  point  of  accordance  between  the 
Bible  and  science  is  in  the  affirmation  on  the 
part  of  the  former  of  use  and  adaptation  in  nat- 
ure, in  connection  with  the  ideas  of  design 
and  final  cause.  The  supposition  of  an  all- 
wise  Creator  involves  this ;  and  science  has 
so  keenly  perceived  the  necessity  for  it,  in 
its  subordinate  forms,  that  our  most  popular 
hypothesis  of  the  originj)f_^pecies jieifies  use, 
in  the  narrow  sense  in  which  it  applies  to  the 
individual,  under  the  name  of  natural  selection, 
and  makes  it  the  creator  of  all  things,  while, 
Avith  singular  blindness  as  to  the  possibility  of 
higher  uses,  it  denies  the  evidence  for  design. 

The  teleology  of  the  Bible  is  very  clear  and 
definite,  and  it  may  be   well  to  compare   it 


38  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

more  minutely  with  that  which  we  can  learn 
from  nature.  The  first  and  highest-  aim  in 
creation  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  Creator : 
"  God  saw,  and  it  was  good."  This  is  a  point 
of  teleology  to  which  science  does  not  often 
soar.  It  approaches  it  when  it  speaks  of  ab- 
stract beauty  and  fitness  being  ends.  When 
Darwin,  perhaps  not  wisely,  asserted  that  the 
production  of  any  structure  for  the  purpose  of 
beauty  alone  would,  if  proved,  be  fatal  to  his 
theory,  he  unwittingly  placed  himself  in  direct 
antagonism  to  the  Bible,  and  he  was  obliged 
subsequently  to  modify  his  views  on  this  point. 
But  the  instinct  of  beauty  is  too  strong  in 
man  to  allow  scientific  students  generally  to 
fall  into  this  error.  Strauss,  who,  though  he 
could  get  rid  of  God,  could  not  remove  from 
his  mind  the  idea  of  cosmical  beauty  and 
fitness,  strove  to  embody  it  in  his  pantheistic 
conception  of  the  Cosmos,  —  the  All,  existing 
in  and  for  itself  eternally*;  which  is,  after  all, 
nothing  but  a  vague  generalized  statement 
of  the  truth  now  before  us. 

A  second  object  in  nature  is  the  good  of 
man,  who  is  the  "  shadow  and  image  "  of  his 
Maker,  and  has  dominion  over  the  lower  world. 
In  science  a  like  conclusion  may  be  drawn 


SCIENCE   TO   THE  BIBLE.  39 

from  the  fact  that  man  is  the  archetype  of  the 
animal  creation,  the  highest  manifestation  of 
life,  and  that  he  enjoys  a  power  of  ruling  and 
using  nature  by  virtue  of  his  reason ;  while  he 
can  also  feel  and  enjoy  natural  beauty  and 
fitness.  Merely  natural  science,  however,  can- 
not reach  to  the  full  conception  of  the  Bible 
on  this  point,  because  it  has  not  before  it  the 
idea  of  this  world  as  a  place  of  training  and 
culture  for  the  spiritual  and  immortal  nature  of 
man,  and  of  manifestation  to  him  of  the  attri- 
butes of  his  Maker. 

A  third  end  recognized  in  the  Bible  is  the 
welfare  and  happiness  of  all  the  lower  animals. 
He  listens  to  the  young  ravens  when  they  cry, 
and  provides  for  the  sparrows,  while  he  feeds 
all  the  "  creeping  things  innumerable  "  of  the 
great  and  wide  sea.  This  also  science  must 
recognize,  not  only  because  of  the  wonderful 
and  complicated  adaptations  of  all  parts  of 
nature  to  each  other,  but  because  of  those 
vast  geological  periods  in  which  the  earth  was 
tenanted  by  the  lower  animals  alone. 

Of  course  if  natural  science  can  get  rid  alto- 
gether of  the  idea  of  design  in  nature,  it  may 
regard  all  these  uses  as  mere  results  of  some 
inevitable  tendency  in  things  to  adapt  them- 


40  GENERAL  RELATIONS  OF 

selves  to  eacli  other.  But  science  cannot  get 
rid  of  design,. which,  as  even  Mill  came  in  his 
later  days  to  admit,  rests  on  an  inductive 
basis,  and  in  this  respect  takes  a  higher  place 
than  any  theory  of  evolution.  So  long,  indeed, 
as  the  human  mind  retains  its  present  consti- 
tution, it  cannot  rid  itself  from  the  belief  that 
the  complex  adjustments  seen  everywhere  in 
nature  imply  an  intelligent  contriver.  It  may 
be  noted  here,  as  a  remarkable  coincidence, 
that,  when  Mill  in  his  essay  on  Theism  states 
that  the  argument  from  design  is  the  only 
one  valid  to  his  mind  as  a  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God,  he  returns  in  this  precisely  to 
the  ground  taken  by  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  when  he  says,  "  From  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world  God's  invisible  things,  even 
his  eternal  power  and  divinity,  are  plainly 
seen,  being  perceived  by  means  of  the  things 
that  he  hath  made." 

4.  The  Bible  recognizes  type  or  plan  in 
nature.  It  brings  out  the  likeness  of  man,  as 
the  archetype,  to  God  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
behemoth,  who  was  made  with  him,  on  the 
other.  It  holds  to  plan  and  continued  purpose 
as  pervading  all  nature,  and  it  is  full  of  the 
harmonies  which  obtain  between  natural  and 


SCIENCE  TO  THE  BIBLE.  41 

spiritual  things,  and  thus  it  links  all  things  to 
each  other  and  to  their  plan  in  the  divine 
mind.  Dr.  McCosh  has  noticed,  in  this  con- 
nection, in  his  "  Typical  Forms  and  Special 
Ends,"  the  remarkable  passage  on  this  sub- 
ject in  Psalm  139th  :  — 

"  My  substance  was  not  hid  from  thee, 
When  I  was  made  in  secret, 

And  curiously  wrought  in  the  depths  of  the  earth. 
Thine  eyes  did  see  my  substance,  yet  being  imperfect ; 
And  in  thy  book  all  my  members  were  written  ; 
Day  by  day  were  they  fashioned,  when  there  were  none  of 
them." 

Perhaps  it  might  too  much  tax  the  faith  of 
scientific  men,  to  ask  them  to  admit  that  the 
writer  had  before  his  mind  the  prototypes  of 
man  which  geology  has  recovered  from  the 
rocks  of  the  earth.  No  objection  need,  how- 
ever, be  taken  to  our  reading  in  it  the  doc- 
trine of  embryonic  development  according  to 
a  systematic  type. 

This  idea  of  plan  is  equally  manifest  to  sci- 
ence, though  one  great  school  of  scientific  men 
is  in  our  time  disposed  to  regard  it  from  the  op- 
posite point  of  view  to  that  taken  by  Scripture, 
and  to  infer,  from  likeness  of  plan,  merely  a 
genetic  connection  or  spontaneous  derivation 
of   things.      This   mode    of    viewing    nature 


) 
42  GENERAL  RELATIONS   OF 

serves  very  well  to  explain  hypothetically 
most  parts  of  its  plan ;  but  it  has  no  proof 
other  than  a  series  of  uncertain  analogies,  and 
it  fails  to  supply  any  adequate  power  to  initi- 
ate and  carry  on  the  series  of  changes  required. 

This,  however,  we  have  to  consider  in  the 
sequel ;  and  in  the  mean  time  may  content 
ourselves  with  affirming  that  the  Bible  occu- 
pies here  at  least  a  consistent  and  logical 
position.  Taking  its  stand  on  the  divine  will 
and  power,  it  holds  that  these  act  by  law  or 
in  a  definite  and  uniform  way,  with  unerring 
prescience,  and  with  a  perfect  mastery  of  all 
natural  forces,  and  that  we  thus  have,  carried 
out  through  all  the  ages,  a  continuous  and 
consistent  plan,  whose  completion  is  still  in  the 
future. 

In  concluding  our  survey  of  law,  order,  use, 
and  plan,  it  may  be  well  to  notice  the  sense 
often  attached  to  the  .term  divine  "interven- 
tion," as  if  the  Bible  theism  required  that  God 
should,  like  a  human  artificer,  frequently  in- 
terfere to  repair  or  put  right  certain  portions 
of  his  work.  This  notion  is  really  foreign 
from  the  theism  of  Scripture,  which  holds 
that  God  is  always  present  in  his  work,  and 
that  all  his  work  is  perfect,  whether  we  can 


SCIENCE    TO   THE  BIBLE.  43 

see  this  or  not.  It  does  recognize  a  difference 
between  his  original  acts  of  creation,  and  his 
continuance  of  what  he  has  created  under  the 
laws  of  its  being,  —  a  difference  which  we  at 
once  perceive  must  exist,  on  any  theory  of 
theism ;  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  define 
its  nature.  It  also  recognizes  a  special  work 
of  God  in  connection  with  the  redemption  of 
man ;  and  the  revelation  of  himself,  and  of 
the  Divine  Word  in  connection  with  this,  is 
perhaps  the  only  part  of  his  procedure  to 
which  the  term  "  intervention  "  can  properly 
apply,  and  this  not  in  the  offensive  sense  of  an 
absent  God  returning  to  patch  or  interfere 
with  his  previous  work. 

In  this  opening  lecture,  I  have  dwelt  on 
general  features  of  the  relations  of  the  Bible 
to  science.  I  must  now  proceed  to  show 
more  in  detail  that  the  Bible  is  true  to  nature. 
In  doing  so,  I  cannot  enter  into  all  the  topics 
involved,  but  must  select  such  as  seem  to  be 
most  important  in  meeting  the  difficulties  and 
misapprehensions  at  present  prevalent. 


LECTtTRE   n. 

« 

BIBLICAL   VIEWS   OF   THE   UNIVERSE   AS   A 
WHOLE. 


LECTURE   II. 

BIBLICAL   VIEWS   OF   THE   UNIVERSE   AS  A 
WHOLE. 


The  Heavens.  —  Atmospheric  Heaven  or  Expanse.  — 
Sidereal  and  Planetary  Heaven. — Third  or 
Spiritual  Heaven. 

TT  is  possible  that  there  may  be  a  condition 
of  humanity  in  which  the  lord  of  creation 
so  far  resembles  the  lower  animals  that  his 
mental  vision  is  limited  to  the  little  space  of 
earth  he  inhabits,  and  his  immediate  interests 
therein.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  even  the 
rudest  tribes  of  men,  as  known  to  us,  have 
learned  to  lift  their  eyes  to  the  heavens  and 
to  give  names  to  the  more  prominent  bodies 
and  groups  of  bodies  that  meet  their  view,  and 
even  to  see  something  of  divinity  in  these 
great  orbs ;  while  in  the  apparently  limitless 
depths  of  heaven,  and  in  the  ceaseless  round 
of  day  and  night,  and  summer  and  winter, 
and  in  the  vicissitudes  of  storm  and  calm,  and 
the  occasional  appearance  of  comets  and  me- 


48  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF   THE 

teors,  they  have  heen  impressed  with  feelings 
of  awe  and  reverence  deepening  often  into 
superstition.  Nor  has  science  emancipated  its 
followers  from  such  feelings.  The  astronomer 
who  has  weighed  the  heavenly  bodies,  and 
gauged  their  distances,  and  examined  their 
spectra,  stands  after  all  appalled  by  their  in- 
conceivable grandeur  and  vastness,  and  com- 
plicated mutual  relations.  Nor  can  he  easily 
banish  from  his  mind  the  idea  of  an  intelligent 
contriver  of  motions  which  have  exhausted 
his  powers  of  calculation  in  endeavoring  to 
discover  their  laws. 

What,  then,  is  the  relation  of  the  Bible  to 
this  wondrous  spectacle  of  the  heavens  ?  Does 
it  fail  to  perceive  its  significance  ?  Does  it 
with  the  heathen  bow  down  and  worship  the 
host  of  heaven  ?  Does  it  weave  the  heavenly 
orbs  into  a  fantastic  or  beautiful  dream  of 
poetical  mythology  ?  Or  does  it  with  the 
scientific  materialist  see  nothing  but  dead 
forces  and  star-dust? 

Its  answer  is  contained  in  its  opening  sen- 
tence, "In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth."  So  its  first  word  is 
of  the  material  universe.  The  first  article  in 
the  creed   of  inspiration  relates   to   physical 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  49 

nature.  Surely  the  importance  of  the  outer 
physical  world  is  here  sufficiently  recognized, 
—  the  heavens  first  and  the  earth  next.  But 
the  business  of  the  Bible  with  the  heavens  is 
special.  First,  it  tells  us  that  they  are  not 
eternal  and  self-existent.  They  date  from,  an 
unknown  period  in  the  depths  of  past  time,  — 
the  beginning,  —  when  even  they  had  an  ori- 
gin in  the  counsels  and  power  of  the  Eternal. 
They  were  created,  the  word  implying  the 
most  absolute  kind  of  production  by  almighty 
power.*  The  Creator  is  God,  or  in  the  plural 
"  Gods  "  (Elohim),  as  including  those  manifes- 
tations of  divinity,  immediately  after  men- 
tioned, in  his  Word  and  Spirit ;  or  as  inclusive 
of  all  true  Godhead  in  the  one  God,  the 
Creator ;  and  thus  leaving  no  room  to  the 
polytheist  to  ask,  "  Which  of  the  gods 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  ? " 

The  Bible  thus  in  its  first  verse  grasps  the 
whole  universe  in  two  comprehensive  words, 
and  lays  it  at  the  feet  of  the  Almighty  as  its 
Creator.  It  thus  purposely  cuts  itself  loose 
from  mythology  and  superstition  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  materialism  and  atheism  on 
the  other,  and  defines  its  position  in  regard  to 

*  This  is  discussed  in  "  Archaia,"  pp.  61  etseq. 
4 


50  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF   THE 

nature  as  that  of  rational  theism.  Nothing 
could  be  more  clear  than  this ;  and  if  we  are 
content  to  receive  it  as  the  only  solution  of 
the  ultimate  mystery  of  the  origin  of  things, 
—  the  only  answer  to  that  "  infinite  note  of 
interrogation  "  which  meets  us  at  the  end  of 
all  lines  of  research,  —  it  forms  a  broad  and 
satisfactory  basis  for  religion,  and  a  final  goal 
for  science.  Let  us  next  inquire  how  the  Bible 
carries  out  this  grand  statement  into  detail, 
and  this  will  lead  us  in  the  first  instance 
to  consider  the  Biblical  classification  of  the 
heavens. 

In  the  Bible  all  the  depths  of  space  beyond 
the  surface  of  the  earth  are  designated  by 
the  general  term  "  heavens  "  (shamayim),  the 
heights,  or  the  things  which  are  high.  The 
heavens  are  again  subdivided  into  three  great 
regions :  the  first  or  atmospheric  heaven,  — 
the  expanse ;  the  second  or  astronomical 
heaven,  including  the  planets  and  stars ;  and 
the  third  or  highest  heaven,  the  unseen 
abode  of  God's  special  presence,  and  of  higher 
spiritual  intelligences. 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  51 

The  Atmospheric  Heaven. 

This  is  introduced  to  us  for  the  first  time  in 
Genesis,  chap.  i.  verse  6  :  "  And  God  said,  Let 
there  be  an  expanse  in  the  midst  of  the 
waters ; "  that  is,  to  separate  the  waters  of 
the  clouds  above  from  those  of  the  then  uni- 
versal ocean  beneath.  This  expanse,  we  are 
expressly  told,  "  God  called  heaven,"  thus 
including  it,  for  purposes  of  popular  classifica- 
tion, with  the  abysses  of  space  without,  rather 
than  with  the  earth  within. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  early  Greek  trans- 
lators adopted  —  perhaps  in  deference  to  the 
opinions  of  their  time  —  the  word  stereoma, 
a  solid,  as  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
rakiah,  expanse  or  expanded  thing,  and 
that  this  error  has  been  continued  in  our 
translation  by  the  word  "  firmament."  We 
may,  however,  receive  it  with  Milton's  expla- 
nation, which,  while  recognizing  the  word  fir- 
mament, defines  its  true  meaning  :  — 

"  The  Firmament,  expanse  of  liquid, 
Pure,  transparent,  elemental  air, 
Diffused  in  circuit  to  the  uttermost  convex 
Of  this  great  round." 

The  statements  in  Genesis  respecting  the 
expanse  suppose  a  previous  condition  of  the 


52  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

earth,  in  which  it  was  encompassed  with  a 
cloudy,  vaporous  mantle,  stretching  continu- 
ously upward  from  the  ocean,  and  not  divided 
by  the  film  of  clear  transparent  air,  which  in 
all  but  a  few  exceptional  cases  now  separates 
the  clouds  above  from  the  sea  below.  Such  a 
condition  probably  antedates  geological  time  ; 
yet  it  is  not  unknown  to  scientific  theory.  If, 
as  seems  probable,  the  earth  was  once  in  an 
intensely  heated  state,  a  time  would  come,  in 
the  process  of  cooling,  when  a  heated  ocean 
would  send  up  abundant  vapors,  producing  a 
perpetual  mist  or  fog  to  be  constantly  con- 
densed, by  the  cold  of  space  without,  into 
continual  rains.  The  change  from  this  to  the 
present  state  of  the  earth  would  introduce 
that  nice  and  delicate  balancing  of  evapora- 
tion under  the  influence  of  the  sun,  and  con- 
densation from  the  radiation  of  heat  into 
space  and  the  mixture  of  air  at  various  tem- 
peratures, which  now  gives  us  the  stratum  of 
air  in  which  we  live  and  move,  the  beauty  of 
the  azure  sky  and  its  floating  clouds,  and  the 
regulated  supply  of  fertilizing  rain.  The 
Bible  does  not  enter  into  any  details  on  the 
subject,  nor  is  it  necessary  for  us  to  do  so, 
any  farther  than  to  say  that  they  form  the 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  53 

subject  of  the  science  of  meteorology,  one 
of  the  most  complicated  of  scientific  studies, 
and  not  yet  well  understood  even  in  its  more 
general  laws  ;  and  that  practically  they  provide 
for  the  possible  subsistence  of  the  higher  ani- 
mals and  plants  of  the  land. 

However  little  we  may  have  thought  of  this 
subject,  every  one  must  admit  that  the  insti- 
tution of  the  laws  and  arrangements  of  our 
atmosphere  merited  as  a  physical  fact  some 
notice  in  the  history  of  creation.  Still  more 
did  it  require  notice  from  a  theological  point 
of  view,  since,  of  all  the  objects  of  idolatry 
which  have  competed  with  a  pure  theology, 
none  have  occupied  a  larger  place  in  the 
minds  of  men  than  cloud-compelling  Zeus,  and 
the  other  ether  gocls  of  antiquity,  whose 
function  Moses  completely  takes  away  when 
he  refers  the  atmosphere  and  all  its  phenom- 
ena to  the  fiat  of  the  one  God,  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth.  Nor  need  we  suppose 
that  the  "  waters  above  the  heavens "  are 
relatively  too  small  to  deserve  special  notice. 
The  quantity  of  water  suspended  in  the  atmos- 
phere is  enormous  ;  and  the  rains,  the  springs, 
and  rivers  which  fertilize  the  earth  and  sustain 
its  inhabitants,  are  only  the  overflowings  of 


54  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

this  vast  aerial  reservoir,  upheld  by  the  laws 
established  by  God. 

It  would  be  remarkable,  were  it  not  that  the 
frequency  of  such  things  makes  us  familiar 
with  them,  that  the  most  absurd  misrepresen- 
tations of  the  Biblical  expanse  are  current  in 
literature,  and  even  in  the  works  of  men  who 
believe  in  and  reverence  the  Scriptures. 

In  Smith's  Bible  Dictionary  for  instance,  in 
an  article  on  Heaven  over  the  initials  of  an 
eminent  English  scholar,  but  which  may  be 
affirmed  to  contain  as  many  inaccuracies,  scien- 
tific and  scriptural,  as  could  well  be  compressed 
into  the  space  it  occupies,  we  find  it  stated 
that  it  is  clear  that  Moses  meant  a  u  solid 
expanse,"  "  a  firm  vault,"  supported  "  on 
the  mountains  as  pillars;"  and- in  a  popular 
book  on  "  Myths,"  by  a  gentleman  of  some 
reputation  in  America,  I  find  the  quaint  and 
ridiculous  translation,  —  not,  however,  alto- 
gether original,  —  "  And,  said  the  Gods,  let 
there  be  a  hammered  plate  in  the  midst  of  the 
waters."  The  existence  of  such  notions  war- 
rants a  little  inquiry  as  to  the  precise  state  of 
the  case,  —  inquiry  which  might  otherwise 
appear  a  needless  waste  of  time  and  an  insult 
to  your  intelligence. 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  55 

That  the  idea  of  extension  rather  than  of 
fixity  is  conveyed  by  the  Hebrew  term,  is  im- 
plied in  the  frequent  use  of  such  expressions 
as  the  "  stretching  out  "  of  the  aerial  heaven, 
and  the  comparison  of  it  to  the  curtain  of  a 
tent.  In  connection  with  this,  and  in  itself  a 
beautiful  conception  taken  from  the  motions 
of  the  clouds,  is  the  New  Testament  figure  of 
the  "  rolling  up  of  the  heaven  as  a  scroll. " 
Nor  is  the  idea  of  any  secondary  machinery, 
like  that  of  a  solid  vault,  at  all  congenial  to  the 
spirit  of  the  Scripture  treatment  of  nature, 
which  refers  all  things  directly  to  the  will  of 
God.  Further,  this  idea,  however  it  may  have 
been  applied  by  the  philosophers  of  antiquity 
to  the  explanation  of  the  starry  heavens, 
could  not  commend  itself  to  men  familiar  with 
nature,  or  indeed  to  any  man  who  had  ever 
seen  a  cloud  form  upon  a  mountain's  brow  or 
discharge  itself  in  rain. 

The  expressions  of  Scripture  which  have 
b^en  quoted  in  support  of  this  fancy  are, 
indeed,  either  mere  poetical  figures,  having 
no  such  significance,  or  refer  to  something 
different  from  the  atmospheric  firmament. 
Of  the  first  class  are  the  following :  "  He 
bindeth  up  the  waters  in  his  thick  cloud,  and 


56  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

the  cloud  is  not  rent  under  them,#  a  thought 
which  has  much  natural  truth,  as  referring  to 
the  weight  of  the  atmospheric  waters.  So,  in 
like  manner,  the  mountains  are  the  "  pillars  of 
heaven,"  as  holding  the  atmospheric  waters 
on  their  cloud-capped  summits.  So  also  the 
sudden  descent  of  the  thunder-storm  or  the 
water-spout  is  the  "  emptying  of  the  bottles  of 
heaven"  or  the  opening  of  its  hatches  or 
"windows,"  while  the  gentle  rains  are  said 
with  equal  truth  to  "  distil "  upon  the  earth. 
These  are  all  expressive  figures,  dealing  with 
the  natural  appearances  of  things,  and  imply- 
ing no  theory  as  to  the  constitution  or  laws  of 
the  atmosphere. 

Of  the  second  class  is  that  remarkable  vision 
of  Moses,  f  wherein  he  sees  Gocl  sitting  on  a 
pavement  of  sapphire,  and  compares  this  to 
the  heaven  in  its  transparency,  a  thought 
which  has  as  little  to  do  with  the  idea  of 
solidity  as  any  poetical  figure  relating  to 
heaven's  azure  vault  has  among  ourselves. 
When  Ezekiel  speaks,  in  connection  with 
heaven,  of  the  "  terrible  crystal,"  his  words 
should  be  rendered  the  "  terrible  hail "  or 
ice  of  heaven ;  and  when  Job  compares  the 

*  Job  xxvi  8.  t  Ex.  xxiv.  10. 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  57 

"  sky,"  not  the  expanse,  to  a  molten  mirror, 
the  connection  shows  that  he  refers  to  the 
brilliant  tints  reflected  from  the  sunlit  clouds. 
We  need  not,  however,  remain  on  the  defen- 
sive in  this  matter ;  but  may  assert,  on  behalf 
of  the  inspired  writers,  an  accurate  perception 
of  the  true  relations  of  the  earth  and  its  atmos- 
phere. Take  for  example  an  extract  from 
that  "hymn  of  creation"  the  104th  Psalm, 
which  gives  a  poetical  version  of  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  and  may  be  regarded  as 
the  earliest  of  all  commentaries  on  that  chap- 
ter :  — 

"  Who  stretcheth  out  the  heavens  like  a  curtain: 
Who  layeth  the  beams  of  his  chambers  in  the  waters: 
Who  maketh  the  clouds  his  chariots, 
And  walketh  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind." 

The  waters  here  are  those  above  the  firma- 
ment, the  whole  of  this  part  of  the  psalm  being 
occupied  with  the  heavens ;  but  there  is  no 
room  left  for  the  solid  firmament,  of  which 
the  writer  plainly  knew  nothing.  He  repre- 
sents God  as  laying  his  chambers  on  the  waters, 
instead  of  on  the  supposed  firmament,  and  as 
careering  in  cloudy  chariots  not  over  a  solid 
arch,  but  borne  on  the  wings  of  the  wind.  It 
is  obvious  from  this  that  the  writer  of  this 


58  BIBLICAL   VIEWS   OF   THE 

beautiful  psalm  did  not  understand  Moses  in 
tlie  manner  in  which  he  is  interpreted  by  some 
of  the  moderns. 

Or  let  us  refer  to  the  magnificent  descrip- 
tion of  meteorological  phenomena  in  the  36th 
chapter  of  Job,  which  perhaps,  in  the  beauty 
of  its  many  references  to  the  atmosphere,  ex- 
cels any  other  composition  :  — 

"  For  he  draweth  up  the  drops  of  water; 
Rain  is  condensed  from  his  vapor, 
Which  the  clouds  do  drop 
And  distil  upon  man  abundantly, 

Yea  can  any  understand  the  distribution  of  the  clouds 
Or  the  thundering  of  his  tent.* 

Out  of  the  south  cometh  the  whirlwind, 
And  cold  out  of  the  north. 
By  the  breath  of  God  the  frost  is  produced, 
And  the  breadth  of  the  waters  is  straitened ; 
With  moisture  he  loads  the  dense  cloud, 
And  spreadeth  the  clouds  of  his  lightning. 

Dost  thou  know  how  God  disposes  these  things, 
And  the  lightning  of  his  cloud  flashes  forth? 
Dost  thou  know  the  poising  of  the  clouds, 
The  wonderful  works  of  the  Perfect  in  Knowledge." 

This  is  the  same  poem  from  which  the 
description  of  the  clouds,  as  resembling  a  mir- 
ror, has  been  already  quoted ;  and  it  will  be 

*  "  His  pavilion  round  about  him  w^as  dark  waters  and  thick 
clouds"  (Ps.  xviii.)  explains  this  expression. 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  59 

seen  that  it  contemplates  no  atmospheric  dome, 
but  on  the  contrary  speaks  of  the  poising  or 
suspension  of  the  clouds  as  inscrutable.  So 
also  God  is  elsewhere  said  to  have  "  estab- 
lished the  clouds  above,"  *  and  to  have  "  bal- 
anced the  clouds,"  t  not  by  a  solid  substratum, 
but  by  his  unchanging  decree. 

The  attempt,  in  short,  to  fix  upon  the  Bible 
the  idea  of  a  solid  atmospheric  vault  is  alto- 
gether gratuitous,  as  well  as  abhorrent  from 
the  general  tenor  of  Holy  Writ ;  and  I  may  add 
that  the  expression,  "  God  called  the  expanse 
heaven,"  is  in  itself  a  vindication  of  this  con- 
clusion, as  implying  that  no  barrier  separates 
our  film  of  atmosphere  from  the  boundless 
abyss  of  heaven  without. 

In  very  special  connection  with  this  subject 
is  the  question  referred  to  in  the  previous 
lecture,  as  to  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  "It  is 
useless  to  pray  for  rain,  since  that  is  under  the 
control  of  physical  laws,"  is  the  doctrine  of  a 
noted  physicist  of  our  time.  "  Elijah  prayed 
to  God,  and  it  rained  not  for  three,  years  and 
six  months,  and  he  prayed  again  and  the 
heaven  gave  rain,"  is  the  counter  statement 
of  Scripture.     Which  is  the  more  truthful  or 

*  Prov.  viii.  28.  t  Job  xxxvii.  16. 


60  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

scientific  statement,  or  is  there  some  truth  in 
both  ?  The  Bible  takes  quite  as  strong  ground 
as  the  physicist  on  the  side  of  law.  The 
weather  is  not  with  it  a  matter  of  chance,  or 
the  sport  of  capricious  demons.  God  arranged 
it  all  far  back  in  the  work  of  creation.  His 
laws  are  impartial  also  ;  for  he  sends  his  rain 
on  the  evil  and  the  good.  But  the  Bible 
knows  a  Law-giver  beyond  the  law,  and  one 
who  sympathizes  with  the  spiritual  condition 
of  his  people,  and  can  so,  in  the  complex  ad- 
justments of  his  work,  order  the  times  and 
seasons  as  to  correlate  fruitful  seasons  or 
drought  and  barrenness  with  their  obedience 
or  their  backsliding.  That  there  is  nothing 
unscientific  in  this  a  very  little  thought  may 
show  us.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  Elijah's 
prayer.  The  worship  of  Baal  was  not  quite 
so  silly  as  at  first  we  may  think,  even  in  the 
case  of  astute  and  practical  people  like  the 
old  Phoenicians  and  the  Israelites.  He  Avas  the 
sun  god,  and  the  study  of  nature  shows  us 
that  the  sun  is  the  great  source  of  physical 
energy  to  this  world.  In  a  physical  sense,  all 
things  may  be  said  to  live  in  him  and  to  be 
animated  by  his  power.  To  thoughtful  men, 
knowing  no  higher  power,  and  yet  retaining 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  61 

some  religious  feeling,  he  was  almost  of  neces- 
sity the  chief  God.  Yet  Elijah,  standing. on 
Mount  Carmel,  could  deride  the  priests  of  Baal 
when  from  morning  to  evening  they  called 
upon  the  sun  and  there  was  no  answer.  He 
could  do  this,  because  he  knew  that  the  sun 
was  merely  a  creature  subject  to  physical  law. 
Had  Professor  Tyndall  been  present  on  Mount 
Carmel,  his  view  would  have  been  thus  far 
precisely  the  same ;  and  he,  as  little  as  Elijah, 
would  have  joined  the  priests  in  their  frantic 
leaping  around  their  altar  and  cutting  them- 
selves with  knives.  But  had  he  now  turned 
to  the  prophet  and  said  :  "  You  see  it  is  useless 
to  pray  for  rain,"  Elijah  could  have  answered, 
"  True  it  is  useless  to  pray  to  the  sun,  for  he 
is  the  slave  of  inexorable  law ;  but  as  you  do 
not  deny  that  there  may  be  a  God  who  enacted 
the  law,  and  as  this  God,  being  everywhere, 
can  have  access  to  the  spirits  of  men,  it  may 
be  quite  possible  for  God  so  to  correlate  the 
myriad  adjustments  which  determine  whether 
the  rain  shall  fall  on  any  particular  place  at 
any  particular  time,  that  the  fact  shall  coincide 
with  his  spiritual  relations  to  his  people. 
Further,  it  does  not  matter  in  the  least  how 
closely  all  these  natural  phenomena  are  bound 


62  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

together  bv  links  of  cause  and  effect,  because 
this  chain  of  causation  must  have  had  a  begin- 
ning, and  to  God  who  knows  the  end  from  the 
beginning,  and  to  whom  the  past  and  the  future 
are  both  alike  present,  it  is  the  same  to  arrange 
these  correlations  to-day  or  in  the  beginning 
of  time.  Therefore,  if  you  cannot  deny  that 
there  is  a  God,  and  if  you  must  admit  that 
such  a  God  cannot  be  debarred  from  inter- 
course with  the  souls  he  has  made,  the  science 
of  nature,  which  merely  makes  known  in  part 
certain  modes  of  God's  operation,  can  bear 
no  true  testimony  against  the  efficacy  of 
prayer  addressed  to  him."  Thus  it  may  be 
quite  true  that  it  is  useless  to  pray  if  we  know 
no  power  above  physical  laws  and  material 
objects,  and  it  would  be  most  absurd  to  pray 
to  these ;  but,  if  we  have  access  to  the  mind 
that  made  and  rules  all  these  things,  who  can 

tell  what  answers  we  mav  evoke  ? 

*/ 

There  is  nothing  therefore  in  science,  any 
more  than  in  Scripture,  to  interpose  a  vault  of 
brass  between  us  and  the  higher  heaven.  But 
we  may  go  even  further  than  this,  and  affirm 
that  there  are  some  analogical  indications  af- 
forded by  science  of  a  present  God,  and  of  the 
possibility  of  access  to  him.    Not  long  ago,  ap- 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  63 

parently  impassable  gulfs  intervened  between 
the  great  forces  of  nature,  now  we  begin  to 
see  that  they  may  be  one  in  essence,  and  so 
convertible  into  each  other  that  the  most 
strange  and  unlooked-for  mutations  may  arise. 
What  if  they  should  all  be  ultimately  resolv- 
able into  the  will  of  God  ?  and  may  not  man 
by  his  will  and  spirit,  as  well  as  by  his  reason, 
share  in  the  resources  of  omnipotence  ?  Moses 
long  ago  included  all  the  great  forces  of  nature, 
except  gravitation,  in  the  one  Hebrew  word 
or*  translated  "light''  in  our  version,  and 
attributed  them  to  the  Almighty  fiat  \  and,  if 
modern  science  arrives  at  the  same  conclusion 
as  to  the  unity  of  these  forces,  it  need  not 
quarrel  with  his  conclusion  as  to  their  source. 
Farther,  the  inventions  which  science  has 
made,  giving  to  man  mastery  over  these  same 
forces,  should  render  us  more  humble  in  limit- 
ing the  possibilities  of  intercourse  between 
man  and  God.  We  can  fancy  the  scorn  with 
wdiich  a  philosopher  of  the  time  of  Hume 
would  have  treated  the  madman  who  should 
affirm,  contrary  to  experience  and  probability, 
that  he  could  stand  in  an  office  in  London  and 
dictate  instantaneous  commands  to  his  agents 

*  Allied  in  derivation  to  the  Greek  aldfjp. 


64  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

in  America  or  China ;  yet  relatively  a  small 
amount  of  additional  knowledge,  attained  by 
a  few  electricians,  has  rendered  this  miracle 
familiar  to  the  ordinary  business  man,  who 
knows  nothing  of  the  laws  of  electricity.  Such 
things,  while  they  are  glories  of  practical  sci- 
ence, should  make  it  humble  in  affirming  or 
denying  possibilities  beyond  its  ken. 

The  Planetary  and  Sidereal  Heavens, 

Leaving  the  first  or  atmospheric  heaven,  let 
us  ascend  to  that  of  the  planets  and  stars. 
This  is  included  in  the  general  term  "  heavens  " 
in  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  ;  but  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  heavenly  bodies  in  their  relation 
to  our  earth  are  not  specified  till  the  fourth 
creative  day,  whereas  light  and  its  allied 
forces  were  the  work  of  the  first  day.  This 
distinction  between  light  and  luminaries  is 
another  point  on  which  Moses  anticipates 
science.  On  any  physical  hypothesis  of  the 
formation  of  the  universe,  whether  the  nebular 
hypothesis  of  Laplace  or  the  modifications  of 
it  which  have  been  more  recently  proposed, 
there  ought  to  have  been  diffused  light  first, 
and  the  aggregation  of  this  about  the  central 
luminary  as   a  subsequent  process;  and  the 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  65 

enormous  lapse  of  time  implied  in  this  physical 
perfecting  of  our  system  is  well  shadowed  forth, 
in  its  being  finished  only  on  the  fourth  of  the 
six  creative  seons. 

Three  points  with  reference  to  the  astro- 
nomical heaven,  noted  in  Scripture,  and  which 
are  still  its  most  striking  features,  are,  —  its 
vastness,  the  number  of  its  orbs,  and  the 
mighty  power  implied  in  their  mass  and 
movements.  When  the  writer  of  the  8th 
Psalm  considers  the  heavens,  he  says,  "  What 
is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? "  In 
another  psalm  we  find  that  "  the  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament 
showeth  forth  his  handiwork  ; "  and  their  voice- 
less proclamation  of  his  power  is  dilated  on 
in  other  poetic  images.  Again,  "  God  telleth 
the  number  of  the  stars,  and  calleth  them  all 
by  name."  Isaiah  tells  us  to  "lift  up  our 
eyes  on  high,  and  behold  who  hath  created 
these  things,  bringing  out  their  host  by  num- 
ber. He  calleth  them  by  names.  By  the 
greatness  of  his  might,  because  he  is  strong 
in  power,  not  one  faileth." 

The  Bible,  however,  does  not  dilate  upon 
these  subjects  merely  to  feed  our  wonder.  It 
adduces  them  as  evidences  of  the  grand  unity 

5 


6Q  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF  THE 

of  nature  in  God,  and  in  opposition  to  all 
those  mythological  follies  which  induced  even 
the  most  cultivated  nations  of  antiquity  to 
personify  the  heavenly  orbs  and  to  assign  to 
them  divine  attributes. 

But  the  Scripture  in  two  instances  assigns 
power  to  prayer  and  miraculous  intervention, 
even  in  the  case  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  In 
two  instances  only,  however,  —  Joshua's  mira- 
cle and  that  on  the  sun-dial  of  Ahaz  ;  and  these 
with  special  note  of  their  great  and  excep- 
tional character.  With  reference  to  any  phys- 
ical explanations  of  these  miracles,  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  none  is  attempted,  though  other 
miracles  much  less  stupendous  —  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  the  pass- 
age of  the  Red  Sea  —  are  thus  in  part  explained. 
We  may  suggest  conjectural  explanations ;  as, 
for  example,  an  abnormal  atmospheric  refrac- 
tion. But  there  can  be  no  certainty  as  to  these, 
and  both  are  left  as  blank  mysteries  to  us  as  a 
steam-engine  or  an  electric  telegraph  would 
have  been  to  Joshua  or  Hezekiah. 

A  remarkable  use  is  made  of  the  sidereal 
heaven  in  certain  prophetical  passages,  where 
it  is  spoken  of  as  decaying  and  renewed. 
These  prophecies  are  no  doubt  emblematic  of 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  67 

human  affairs,  rather  than  literal.  This  is 
amply  shown  by  reference  to  Isaiah's  and  Eze- 
kiel's  prophecies  respecting  Babylon,  Edom, 
and  Egypt,  whose  fall  is  represented  by  the 
falling  and  blotting  out  of  heavenly  bodies, 
and  a  similar  explanation  is  applicable  to  our 
Lord's  prophecies  in  Matthew  xxiv.,  and  to 
the  pictures  in  the  Eevelation  of  St.  John. 
Still  the  representations  are  taken  from  literal 
facts,  —  some  of  them  belonging  to  the  present 
time,  others  relating  to  the  possible  future  of 
the  universe.  To  St.  John  in  particular,  inter- 
preters have  scarcely  done  justice  in  this  re- 
spect. Many  of  his  pictures  are  the  most 
gorgeous  ever  shadowed  forth  in  words.  Take, 
for  instance,  his  harpers  harping  by  the  sea  of 
glass  mingled  with  fire.  The  scene  is  the 
eventide  of  the  world,  after  the  stormy  clay  of 
trial  and  persecution.  The  sun,  sinking  in  the 
west,  throws  his  beams  along  the  smooth  and 
unruffled  sea,  that  has  forgotten  all  its  storms, 
and  glows  with  fiery  lustre ;  while  the  happy 
souls  rescued  from  the  terrors  of  the  past,  and 
standing  on  the  shore  of  safety,  tune  their 
harps  to  the  song  which  Moses  sang  when  the 
hosts  of  Israel  had  passed  safely  over  the  dark 
waters  of  the  Red  Sea.     Such  sketches,  inimi- 


68  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF   THE 

tably  touched  in  a  few  words,  abound  in  this 
wonderful  book.  But  John  rises  to  still 
higher  flights,  when  he  tells  of  a  sun  blotted 
out  from  the  heavens  and  becoming  black  as 
sackcloth  of  hair ;  of  a  moon  reduced  to  that 
dull  ruddy  hue  which  we  see  almost  with 
terror  in  a  lunar  eclipse ;  of  meteoric  stones, 
whose  cosmic  significance  we  are  only  begin- 
ning to  understand,  raining  from  heaven  like 
figs  from  a  tree  shaken  with  a  mighty  wind ; 
and  the  atmospheric  heaven,  with  its  clouds, 
rolling  up  like  a  scroll.  Such  pictures  point 
not  only  to  eclipses  and  meteoric  showers,  but 
to  cosmic  possibilities  now  present  to  the  minds 
of  astronomers ;  to  the  decay  of  the  solar 
energy,  and  to  the  necessity  of  a  renewal  of 
our  world,  and  to  the  chances  of  change  im- 
plied in  the  cometary  and  meteoric  matter 
which  haunts  our  system.  Surely  the  prophet 
who  foreshadows  these  things  without  any  aid 
from  science  must  have  had  some  spiritual 
insight  into  the  plans  of  God.  We  may  at 
least  be  content  to  admit  that  the  Bible  treat- 
ment of  the  starry  heavens  is  marked  by  both 
power  and  accuracy. 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  69 

The  Third  or  Spiritual  Heaven. 

When  the  Bible  speaks  of  a  third  or  spirit- 
ual heaven,  we  might  suppose  that  it  leaves 
altogether  the  domain  of  science.  But  there 
are  some  points  of  connection  even  here.  It 
is  necessary,  however,  in  the  first  place,  to 
direct  attention  to  the  actual  doctrine  of  script- 
ure respecting  the  third  heaven,  since  there 
has  been  so  much  vague  speaking  and  writing 
on  the  subject,  that  the  minds  of  Christians 
have  become  confused  as  to  its  nature,  and 
they  often  seem  scarcely  to  know  whether  it 
is  a  place  or  merely  a  state.  In  the  Bible,  the 
highest  heaven  is  certainly  a  definite  place, 
where  God's  presence  is  specially  manifested, 
although  at  the  same  time  it  pervades  the 
whole  universe.  Our  Lord  affirms,  that  he 
came  from  this  place,  and  returns  to  it;  and 
he  says,  "  I  know  whence  I  came."  He  speaks 
of  it  as  his  "  Father's  house,"  where  there  are 
"  many  mansions ; "  as  a  "  paradise ; "  and  under 
other  figures  implying  a  definite  locality. 
Paul  speaks  of  being  caught  up  into  it.  In 
the  Old  Testament,  God's  temple  at  Jerusalem 
was  a  local  emblem  of  it,  and  the  angel  Ga- 
briel, when  visiting  Daniel,  took  a  stated  time 


70  BIBLICAL    VIEWS  OF  THE 

to  come  from  it,  when  "  flying  very  swiftly." 
It  is  beyond  the  limits  of  the  visible  universe, 
being  the  "heaven  of  heavens,"  and -is  ten- 
anted by  spiritual  beings  whose  nature  can  be 
explained  to  us  only  in  figures  of  speech.  It 
is  a  place  of  special  manifestation  of  God's 
power,  but  does  not  limit  or  contain  his 
energy.  It  is  the  centre  whence  spiritual 
messengers  are  despatched  to  all  parts  of  the 
universe.  Lastly,  at  the  resurrection  our 
bodies  are  to  take  on  the  condition  of  hea- 
venly or  spiritual  bodies,  as  distinguished  from 
natural,  and  the  conditions  of  heaven  are  to 
descend  to  earth  and  to  be  established  therein, 
so  that  heaven  and  earth  become  one  in 
nature,  and  are  permanently  identified. 

These  ideas  are  necessary  to  the  biblical 
conception  of  a  personal  and  spiritual  God. 
The  pantheist  may  agree  with  the  Bible  in 
believing  in  a  universal,  all-pervading  power 
of  some  kind ;  but  he  cannot  conceive  of  this 
as  personal.  The  anthropomorphic  heathen 
limits  and  localizes  his  gods  as  if  they  were 
men.  The  Bible  combines  both  ideas,  giving 
us  a  local  habitation  for  the  special  dwelling 
of  God,  and  at  the  same  time  maintaining 
that  the  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain 
him,  because  his  presence  is  everywhere. 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  71 

Of  this  heaven  of  heavens,  two  scientific 
conceptions  are  possible.  It  may  include  all 
the  abysses  of  space  beyond  that  universe 
within  which  God  has,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
set  limits  to  his  own  action,  by  the  institution 
of  what  we  term  natural  laws.  There  must 
be  a  sense,  however  little  we  can  understand 
it,  in  which  God  inhabiteth  infinity  as  well  as 
eternity.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  a 
centre  of  the  universe  itself,  .and  this  is  per- 
haps the  more  probable  view.  For  just  as  we 
have  in  our  system  the  glorious  sun  as  its 
centre,  and  as  the  stars  are  probably  suns  with 
attendant  worlds,  it  is  a  matter  of  not  unrea- 
sonable conjecture,  that  there  exists  a  physical 
centre  for  the  whole  universe,  —  a  sun  of  suns, 
around  which  all  worlds  have  their  prodigious 
and  almost  eternal  circuits.  It  is  true  we 
have  no  certain  knowledge  of  such  a  centre, 
but  analogy  points  to  it  •  and,  if  the  world 
were  to  continue  long  enough  to  accumulate 
in  future  millenniums  accurate  series  of  obser- 
vations of  the  motion  of  the  whole  heavens, 
we  might  even  hope  to  calculate  the  direc- 
tion and  distance  of  the  physical  heaven  of 
heavens;  and  perhaps  instruments  might  be 
constructed  to  catch  some  rays  of  its  light  for 


rl  BIBLICAL    VIEWS   OF   THE 

mortal  eyes.  Such  anticipations  may  never  be 
realized,  and  we  must  for  the  present  be  con- 
tent to  know  that  science  and  revelation, 
standing;  on  the  extreme  verge  of  their  re- 
spective  fields,  both  point  to  a  mysterious 
centre  of  the  universe  of  God,  whence  ema- 
nate powers  that  extend  to  the  utmost  limits 
of  space,  and  where  dwells  glory  inaccessible, 
which  eye  hath  not  seen,  neither  hath  it 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive. 
Strauss  has  ventured  to  say  that  no  man, 
"  having  a  clear  conception,  in  harmony  with 
the  present  standpoint  of  astronomy,  can  re- 
present to  himself  a  deity  throned  in  heaven." 
On  the  contrary,  astronomy  itself  leads  us  to 
the  supposition  that  God,  while,  like  his  own 
great  forces  of  gravitation  and  heat,  per- 
vading and  penetrating  all  things,  may  like 
these  forces  exert  his  power  from  a  grand 
dominant  centre  of  creation,  where  his  throne 
may  be,  in  the  same  figurative  sense  in  which 
the  earth  is  his  footstool. 

It  is  farther  to  be  observed  that  the  biblical 
idea  of  a  future  state  of  this  earth,  in  which  its 
conditions  shall  become  similar  to  those  of  the 
spiritual  heaven,  is  not  altogether  foreign  to 
science.     A  recent  writer  (Ponton)   has  well 


UNIVERSE  AS  A    WHOLE.  73 

put  this  by  a  reference  to  the  stages  through 
which  the  earth  has  already  passed  in  geologi- 
cal time.  Suppose  an  earth  wholly  mineral, 
and  that  some  prophetic  intelligence  were  to 
endeavor  to  shadow  forth  in  terms  of  the  min- 
eral the  approaching  introduction  of  plants, 
we  can  readily  imagine  the  difficulties  of  such 
an  attempt ;  or  suppose  the  plant  introduced, 
and  the  effort  to  be  made  to  shadow  forth  the 
new  creation  of  the  animal,  in  terms  of  the 
plant;  or  suppose  the  lower  animals  intro- 
duced, and  our  imaginary  prophet  to  have  the 
task  of  explaining  from  their  habits  what  man 
would  think  and  do  when  introduced  on  the 
earth.  All  these  changes  we  now  know  as 
actual  facts ;  but  may  there  not  be  other 
changes  in  store  for  the  universe,  and  may 
not  men,  inspired  by  prophetic  insight,  be  com- 
missioned to  shadow  forth,  in  terms  of  the 
human  and  natural,  the  new  and  glorious 
manifestations  of  divine  power  which  are  to 
be  realized  in  the  future  state. 


LECTURE  in. 

THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE    EARTH   IN  RELATION 
TO   THE  BIBLE. 


Table  I.  —  Parallelism  of  the   Biblical   Cosmogony  with 
the  Physical  and  Geological  History  of  the  Earth. 


BIBLICAL  jEONS. 

The  Beginning. 
The  Earth  without   form,   and 
void.    Darkness  on  the  face  of  the 
Abyss. 

Day  One. 
Creation  of  Light  ( Or).    Institu- 
tion of  Day  and  Night. 


Day  Second. 
Universal  Ocean.    The  Expanse 
placed  in  the  midst  of  the  waters. 


Day  Third. 
The  Dry  Land  appears. 

Vegetation  introduced. 

Day  Fourth. 
Luminaries  arranged  in  relation 
to  the  Earth. 


Day  Fifth. 

Creation  of  Invertebrates  and 
Fishes  (Sheretzim  of  the  waters). 

Creation  of  great  Tanniuim,  or 
Reptilian  animals,  and  Birds. 

Day  Sixth. 

Introduction  of  Mammalia  as 
dominant. 

Creation  of  Man  and  of  the 
Edenic  Animals. 

Day  Seventh. 
The  Rest  of  the  Creator.     His- 
torical Human  Period. 

Day  Eighth. 
Renovation  of  the  Earth.     The 
New  Heaven  aud  New  Earth. 


COSMICAL   PERIODS. 


Creation  of  Matter  and  Force. 
Condensation  of  nebulous  or  other 
matter  to  form  the  solar  system. 
The  Earth  a  vaporous  mass. 

Diffused  light  in  the  solar  sys- 
tem. The  Earth  has  a  Photosphere. 
Condensation  of  luminous  matter 
within  the  Earth's  orbit.  Decay 
of  Terrestrial  Photosphere. 

"Water  condensed  on  the  Earth's 
crust,  and  covered  with  a  dense 
mass  of  vapors. 

The  institution  of  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  atmosphere  as  now 
existing. 

The  Earth's  crust  thrown  into 
folds.     The  first  continents. 

Pre-Laurentian  vegetation,  known 
only  inferentially. 


Beginning  of  the  Archaean  or 
Pre-Eozoie  Age  of  geology.  Com- 
pletion of  existing  state  of  the 
solar  system. 

Palaeozoic  Time,  or  age  of  Inver- 
tebrates. 

Mtsozoic  Time,  or  age  of  Rep- 
tiles. 


Neozoic,  or  Tertiary  Time.  Cul- 
mination of  Mammalia. 

Close  of  Tertiary  and  introduc- 
tion of  the  Human  Period. 


Modem  Time.    Age  of  Man. 


In  the  Future. 


LECTURE    ni. 

THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE   EARTH  IN   RELATION 
TO   THE   BIBLE. 


Generalizations  of  Geology.  —  Creative  .ZEons  of 
Genesis.  —  Order  of  Creation  as  Compared  with 
Geology. 

A  T  no  point  lias  modern  science  appeared 
"^^  to  impinge  more  heavily  on  the  Bible 
than  in  the  relations  of  geology  to  the  narrative 
of  creation  in  Genesis.  No  triumph  of  in- 
ductive science  is  greater  than  that  by  which 
it  has  given  us  a  connected  history  of  the 
stages  of  the  genesis  of  the  earth  and  its 
inhabitants  through  a  long  series  of  ages 
anterior  to  man;  and  on  no  point  has  the 
Bible  appeared  to  insist  more  strongly  than  on 
its  six  creative  clays.  The  apparent  difference 
has  given  rise  to  a  swarm  of  attempts  at  recon- 
ciliation, and  there  has  been  no  want  of  stern 
denunciation  of  the  impiety  of  scientific  men 

on  the  one  hand  and  of  the  bigotry  of  theo- 


78  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

logians  on  the  other.  Happily,  however,  so 
much  light  has  now  been  cast  upon  the  subject 
that  few  intelligent  men  see  any  contradiction 
between  the  conclusions  of  geology  and  the 
doctrine  that  "  in  six  days  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth."  The  subject  is,  how- 
ever, well  worthy  of  some  attention,  if  for 
nothing  else  as  an  example  of  how  the  greatest 
apparent  difficulties  may  fade  away  when 
boldly  encountered. 

Nothing  can  be  more  surely  established  on 
the  basis  of  scientific  induction  than  the  vast 
length  of  the  periods  revealed  by  the  strata  of 
the  earth's  crust.  Some  geologists  are  indeed 
not  content  with  that  enormous  stretch  of  one 
hundred  millions  of  years  which  is  regarded 
as  the  shortest  possible  time  which  may  have 
elapsed  since  a  solid  crust  first  formed  on  the 
cooling  earth.#  To  understand  this,  we  may 
condense  into  a  few  propositions  the  great 
leading  results  of  scientific  investigation  of 
the  earth. 

*  Sir  William  Thomson's  estimate.  Gould  has  argued  that  this 
time  must  be  very  much  shortened,  and  may  indeed  fall  so  low 
as  five  millions  of  years ;  while  some  evolutionists,  like  Wallace, 
demand  a  much  longer  time  than  that  stated  by  Sir  W.  Thomson. 
The  absolute  age  of  the  earth  as  a  planetary  body  is  at  present 
altogether  uncertain. 


IN  RELATION  TO   THE  BIBLE.  79 

Generalizations  of   Geology. 

1.  The  widest  and  most  important  gener- 
alization of  modern  geology  is,  that  all  the 
materials  of  the  earth's  crust,  to  the  greatest 
de23th  to  which  we  can  penetrate,  are  of  such 
a  nature  as  to  prove  that  they  are  not  un- 
changed and  primitive  rocks,  but  the  results 
of  the  operation  of  causes  of  change  now  in 
progress.  They  may  be  such  things  as  con- 
glomerates, sandstones,  shales,  and  slates,  all 
of  which  are  the  debris  of  older  rocks,  broken 
clown  into  pebbles,  sand,  or  mud  ;  or  they  may 
be  limestones,  made  up  of  the  ruins  of  corals 
and  shells ;  or  beds  of  coal  and  metallic  ores, 
accumulated  by  the  agency  of  vegetable 
matter ;  #  or  they  may  be  substances  analo- 
gous to  the  lavas  and  ashes  of  modern  vol- 
canoes ;  or  they  may  be  rocks  that  are  aqueous 
in  their  origin,  and  now  hardened  and  altered 
by  heat.  But  everywhere  we  see  the  evidence 
of  change  under  natural  laws  still  in  force. 

*  Hunt,  in  his  recent  volume,  "  Papers  on  Chemical  and  Physical 
Geology,"  has  shown  that  the  great  beds  of  iron  ore  are  probably 
due  to  the  indirect  agency  of  organic  matter,  even  in  cases  where, 
as  in  the  Silurian  strata,  they  are  not  associated  with  beds  of 
coal.  That  the  coal  and  clay  iron-stone  of  the  coal  formation  are 
due  to  accumulation  of  vegetable  matter  has  long  been  well 
cnown. 


80  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE   EARTH 

2.  This  being  ascertained,  we  can  next 
affirm  that,  in  consequence  of  the  manner  in 
which  successive  deposits  from  water  have 
been  piled  upon  each  other,  a  regular  suc- 
cession can  be  traced  in  the  strata  or  beds  of 
the  earth,  giving  us  a  chronological  sequence 
of  deposits  extending  throughout  the  whole 
time  since  the  sea  first  began  to  receive  into 
its  basin  the  debris  from  the  wasting  land. 
The  general  nature  of  this  order  may  be  seen 
in  the  table  below. 

3.  This  series  of  rock  formations  acquires 
an  immense  increase  of  scientific  value  from 
the  fact  that  organic  remains  of  the  animals 
and  plants  inhabiting  the  earth  at  the  different 
stages  of  its  progress  are  preserved  in  the 
successive  deposits,  and  can  be  compared. 
Further,  these  buried  remains  indicate  suc- 
cessive dynasties  of  life  different  from  that 
now  existing  and  from  each  other ;  so  that  we 
can  divide  the  geological  history  not  merely 
by  a  series  of  beds  of  rock  alternating  with 
each  other,  but  by  a  series  of  faunas  and 
floras  which  have  occupied  the  earth  succes- 
sively from  the  dawn  of  life  until  now.  This 
also  is  exhibited  in  the  table  of  geological 
formations,  but  in  a  very  general  way.     The 


IN  RELATION  TO   THE  BIBLE.  81 

numerous  species  characteristic  of  each  geo- 
logical period  can  be  studied  only  in  books 
specially  devoted  to  this  branch  of  science. 

4.  The  lapse  of  time  embraced  in  this  geo- 
logical history  of  the  earth  is  enormous.  It 
is  difficult  to  give  an  idea  of  this  without 
entering  into  details,  out  of  place  here.  A 
few  facts  must  suffice.  In  the  modern  period, 
which  includes  the  time  of  man  and  the  lower 
animals,  his  contemporaries,  such  facts  as  the 
growth  of  coral  reefs,  the  erosion  of  river 
valleys  and  the  deposit  of  sediment  at  the 
mouths  of  rivers,  give  a  lapse  of  time  to  be 
measured  by  tens  of  thousands  of  years. 
Passing  to  a  single  formation  of  older  date,  — 
the  coal  formation,  —  this,  as  developed  in  Nova 
Scotia,  shows  in  a  single  section  eighty  beds  of 
coal,  overlying  each  other,  and  about  a  hundred 
fossil  forests,  all  successive.  Without  reckon- 
ing the  time  necessary  for  the  deposition  of 
the  thousands  of  feet  of  sand  and  mud  hard- 
ened into  stone  that  enclose  these  beds,  the 
growth  of  so  many  peaty  layers,  often  of  great 
thickness,  with  the  production  and  entombment 
of  so  many  forests,  and  the  time  involved  in 
the  emergences  and  subsidences  of  the  land 
necessary  to  their  appearing  as  they  now  do, 


82  THE  SCIENCE   OF   THE  EARTH 

must  have  required  ages,  compared  with  which 
the  modern  period  dwindles  into  insignificance. 
The  accumulation  of  even  one  bed  of  coal 
may  have  required  as  long  a  time  as  that 
covered  by  human  history.  Again,  numerous 
great  limestones,  of  immense  thickness,  and 
covering  vast  areas,  are  composed  altogether 
of  shells  of  mollusks  or  corals.  Such  lime- 
stones give  us  for  the  lowest  estimate  of  time 
the  lapse  of  vast  ages.  Geological  time  thus 
grows  upon  us  the  more  that  we  examine 
its  details.  Plate  II.,  showing  the  microscopic 
structure  of  two  great  Silurian  beds  of  lime- 
stone, is  an  illustration  of  this ;  and  Table  II. 
represents  in  a  very  general  way  the  whole 
great  series  of  formations,  terminated  by  the 
Human  or  historical  epoch. 


Magnified  Specimens  of  Lower  Silurian  Limestone,  showing  the  manner  in  which 

it  is  made  up  of  fragments  of  Corals,  Cricoids  and  Shells. 
Nature  and  the  Bible.  PLATE  II.  !>•  82. 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE. 


83 


Table  II.  —  View  of  the  Geological  History  of  the  Earth. 


Geological  Periods. 

Animal  Life. 

Vegetable 
Life. 

Neozoic, 
or  Tor-    , 
tiary 
Time. 

Modern  and  Post- 
glacial. 

Post-pliocene,  or 
Glacial.  ^ 

Pliocene. 

Miocene. 

Eocene. 

Age  of  Man. 
Age  of  Mammals. 

Age  of  Angio- 
sperms  and 
Palms. 

M^ozoic    f  Cretaceous. 
±nne.      {  Triassic. 

Age  of  Reptiles 
and  Birds. 

Age  of  Cycads 
and  Pines. 

Palaeozoic 
Time.     ' 

Permian. 
Carboniferous. 
Erian,  or  Devonian. 
Silurian. 

Siluro-Cambrian. 
Cambrian,  or    > 
Primordial. 

Age  of  Amphibians 
and  Fishes. 

Age  of  Mollusks, 
Corals,  and  Crus- 
taceans. 

Age  of  Acrogens 
and  Gymno- 
sperms. 

Age  of  Algae. 

„      .          f  Huronian? 
,p.olc       -\   Upper  Laurentian. 
j.ime.      ^  Lower  Laurentian. 

Age  of  Protozoa. 



Indications  of 
,     Plants,  not  de- 
terminable as 

yet. 

Note.  —  I  have  included  the  Post-pliocene  and  Modern  Ages 
under  the  Tertiary,  because  I  think  there  is  no  good  Paheontolog- 
ical  ground  for  separating  them  from  the  earlier  Tertiary,  except 
in  so  far  as  the  subordinate  divisions  are  concerned. 


84  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE  EARTH 

Creative  JEons  of  Genesis. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  first  chapter  of  Gen- 
esis, and  inquire  how  we  are  to  reconcile 
these  vast  periods  with  a  creation  in  six  days. 
It  will  not  serve  our  purpose  here  to  say  that 
the  Bible  is  not  intended  to  teach  science,  and 
need  not  be  correct  as  to  minor  details.  It 
commits  itself  to  an  order  and  a  time.  We 
cannot  escape  by  saying  that  the  story  is  a 
myth  to  vindicate  the  fourth  commandment ; 
or  we  shall  have  to  hold  very  loose  notions  of 
the  truth  of  Scripture.  We  cannot  say  that 
the  vague  term  "  the  beginning  "  covers  the 
geological  ages,  because  there  is  no  chaotic 
condition  between  these  and  the  human  period. 
Further,  when  we  look  into  the  order  of  the 
narrative,  we  find  that  the  creation  of  animals 
begins  in  the  fifth  day  of  the  Bible  series ;  so 
that,  even  if  we  suppose  our  geological  chro- 
nology to  extend  to  a  little  before  the  intro- 
duction of  animal  life,  it  will  cover  at  most 
three  of  the  six  days  and  part  of  the  seventh. 

The  explanation  of  the  whole  mystery  is, 
that  the  creative  days  themselves  are  long 
periods.  It  has  not  been  left  to  geologists  to 
discover  this ;  for,  independently  of  the  tradi- 


IN  RELATION   TO   THE  BIBLE.  85 

tional  impression  prevailing  throughout  anti- 
quity that  the  world  had  existed  through  long 
pre-human  times,  there  are  venerable  Christian 
authorities,  as  Augustine,  for  instance,  who  on 
grounds  of  a  purely  theological  character  held 
this  doctrine.  The  internal  evidence  of  this 
conclusion  may  be  shortly  stated  as  follows  :  — 

1.  The  perfectly  indefinite  phrase,  "in  the 
beginning,"  places  no  limit  in  backward  ex- 
tension of  time  to  the  commencement  of  God's 
creative  work.  But  the  six  days  must  be  held 
to  include  the  whole  period  occupied  in  the 
arrangements  of  the  earth  and  of  the  solar 
system,  and  the  peopling  of  the  earth  with 
animal  life.* 

2.  The  Hebrew  word  yom,  day,  does  not  7 
necessarily  mean  a  natural  day.  In  Gen.  i.  5,  * 
it  is  used  in  two  senses,  only  one  of  which 
can  mean  a  natural  day :  the  earlier  creative 
days  preceded  the  institution  of  the  natural 
day;  and  in  Gen.  ii.  4,  the  whole  creative 
week  is  called  one  day. 

*  The  view  advocated  by  Dr.  Chalmers  and  by  Dr.  Pye  Smith 
that  the  geological  ages  might  be  contained  in  the  time  between 
the  beginning  and  first  day,  involves  a  strained  interpretation  of 
the  passage,  and  is  contradicted  by  the  fact  that  no  chaotic  period 
intervenes  between  the  human  period  and  the  preceding  tertiary 


86  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

3.  Many  internal  difficulties  occur  on  the 
hypothesis  of  natural  days.  One  of  these  is 
the  interval  which  in  chapter  second  appears 
to  have  occurred  between  the  creation  of  the 
man  and  that  of  the  woman.  Others  arise 
from  the  difficulty  of  replenishing  the  earth 
with  plants  and  animals  in  the  course  of  a  few 
natural  days. 

4.  In  Psalm  xc,  attributed  to  Moses,  and 
certainly  written  in  the  style  of  his  poetry  in 
Deuteronomy,  one  day  of  Jehovah,  relatively 
to  human  history,  is  said  to  be  a  thousand 
years  ;  relatively  to  creation,  it  must  be  much 
longer. 

5.  The  seventh  day  is  not  said  to  have  had 
a  morning  and  evening,  nor  is  God  said  to 
have  resumed  his  work  on  the  eighth  day. 
Hence  the  seventh  clay  is  the  period  of  human 
history  in  which  we  still  live.  Our  Saviour 
sustains  this  view  of  God's  Sabbath  in  his  re- 
markable expression,  "  My  Father  worketh 
hitherto,  and  I  work." 

6.  The  fourth  commandment,  as  explained 
by  Moses,  requires  the  supposition  of  long 
creative  days.  It  cannot  be  meant  that  God 
works  six -natural  days,  and  rests  on  the  seventh 
as  we  do;  but  it  may  be  intended  that  on 


IN  RELATION  TO    THE  BIBLE.  87 

God's  seventh  clay  we  should  have  entered  on 
his  rest,  and  that  the  weekly  Sabbath  is  an 
emblem  of  that  rest,  lost  by  the  fall  and  to  be 
restored  in  the  future. 

7.  This  explanation  has  the  support  of  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  whose 
argument  in  his  fourth  chapter  has  no  force, 
unless  on  the  supposition  that  God  entered 
into  a  rest  of  indefinite  duration,  which  man 
lost  by  the  fall,  retaining  only  the  weekly 
Sabbath  as  a  shadow  of  it,  but  which  is  to  be 
restored  in  Christ,  who  has  already  entered  into 
his  rest,  of  which  the  Lord's  day  is  in  like 
manner  a  foreshadowing.  This  view  is  indeed 
the  only  one  which  brings  the  Lord's  day  of 
the  Christian  fully  into  harmony  with  the 
Jewish  Sabbath ;  making  the  latter  a  weekly 
commemoration  not  only  of  the  completion  of 
the  work  of  creation,  but  of  God's  rest,  which 
man  lost  by  his  fall,  and  the  former  a  weekly 
commemoration  of  that  rest  into  which  the 
Redeemer  has  entered,  and  to  which  Christians 
look  forward. 

8.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the 
use  of  the  Greek  word  aiones,  with  reference 
to  the  creation,  in  Heb.  i.  2,  and  in  Eph.  hi. 
11,  refers  to  the  creative   days  as  indefinite 


88  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

periods,  and  that  these  passages  should  be 
translated  in  accordance  with  this  view ;  while 
we  have  this  authority  for  rendering  the  crea- 
tive periods  of  Gen.  i.,  by  the  word  ceon  rather 
than  by  day.* 

These  things  being  considered,  it  is  worthy 
the  attention  of  theologians  whether  it  would 
not  be  better  to  abandon  the  literalism  of  a 
mediseval  theology  and  return  to  the  patristic 
authority  and  to  the  internal  harmony  of 
Scripture  itself  in  this  matter,  and  thus  to 
put  Moses  in  accordance  with  modern  science 
as  to  the  length  of  the  creative  clays,  which 
there  seems  good  reason  to  believe  he  himself 
intended  to  assume. 

Order  of  Creation  as  compared  with  Greology. 

We  have  noticed  as  shortly  as  possible  the 
generalizations  of  geology  and  the  creative 
days  of  the  Bible,  to  clear  the  way  for  the 
more  detailed  consideration  of  the  harmony 
which  subsists  between  these  records,  —  the  one 
revealed  to  man  before  the  dawn  of  geological 

*  The  above  is  to  be  regarded  merely  as  a  summary  of  reasons. 
A  more  full  discussion  of  the  subject  will  be  found  in  the  author's 
"  Arehaia,"  chap,  vii.,  also  in  McDonald's  "  Creation  and  the 
Fall,"  pp.  93  et  seq.;  and  Lewis's  Introduction  to  Lange's  Genesis, 
pp.  131  et  seq. 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE.  89 

science,  the  other  obtained  from  the  inscrip- 
tions which  God  himself  had  left  in  the  rocks 
of  the  earth.  That  an  order  of  creation  is 
given,  is  in  itself  a  remarkable  fact.  Still, 
that  Moses  might  cover  all  the  ground  of 
ancient  heathenism,  it  was  necessary  to  place 
the  work  of  creation  in  some  order,  and  none 
could  be  more  appropriate  than  the  order  of 
time.  I  do  not  here  discuss  how  this  revela- 
tion of  the  creative  work  was  communicated, 
whether  in  visions  corresponding  to  days  or 
otherwise.  That  it  was  a  divine  revelation 
we  may  rest  assured,  unless  we  can  believe 
that  the  contemporaries  of  the  writer  had 
already  made  such  progress  in  physical  and 
natural  science  as  to  have  reached  to  a  scien- 
tific cosmogony. 

The  sacred  record  opens  with  a  "begin- 
ning," a  time  when  neither  the  heavens  nor 
the  earth  existed  except  in  the  mind  of  the 
Eternal.  To  us  it  is  equally  impossible  to 
conceive  an  eternal  succession  of  natural 
things  or  an  entire  absence  of  matter  and 
force.  Yet  it  is  plain  that  one  or  other  must 
be  assumed ;  and  if  we  exclude  God,  we  place 
ourselves  in  an  absolute  dilemma.  On  the 
other  hand,  believing  in  an  eternal  spiritual 


h 


90  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

First  Cause,  we  may  fall  back  on  hhn,  and  with 
Moses  say,  "  God  created."  Further,  the  ten- 
dency of  all  modern  geological  and  astronomi- 
cal research  has  been  to  point  by  positive 
indications  to  a  beginning.  Geology  shows 
us  that  the  animals  and  plants  which  are  our 
contemporaries  did  not  always  exist,  and  we 
can  trace  back  animal  and  vegetable  life  per- 
haps to  their  origin  on  our  earth.  Even  the 
rocks  and  continents  have  their  geological 
dates,  and  there  are  none  of  them  that  we 
cannot  assign  to  an  origin  in  geological  time. 
So  in  astronomy,  the  moon,  once  apparently 
a  body  similar  to  the  earth  in  its  physical 
character,  has  withered  into  a  dry  volcanic 
cinder  destitute  of  water  and  air.  The  earth 
and  Mars  are  advancing  to  the  same  stage. 
Jupiter  and  Saturn  from  their  great  mass,  are 
further  behind.  On  the  one  hand  we  can 
look  back  to  a  time  when  the  whole  solar 
system  was  in  a  state  of  incandescence  or 
vaporous  diffusion,  and  forward  to  a  time 
.when  the  sun  himself  will  have  dissipated  all 
his  energy.  Science  therefore  must  agree  with 
Moses  in  affirming  a  beginning  of  all  things. 

The  prophet  of  creation  introduces  us  to 
the  earth  at  a  stage  when  it  was  without  form 


IN  RELATION  TO   THE  BIBLE.  91 

and  void,  or  more  literally  desolate  and  empty, 
and  darkness  was  on  the  face  of  the  abyss,  — 
a  stage  precisely  corresponding  with  the  one 
indicated  by  physical  and  chemical  science, 
when  the  earth,  having  not  yet  ceased  to  be  a 
whirl  of  vapor,  and~  before  it  became  a  shining, 
sunlike  ball  with  a  photosphere,  rolled  through 
space  a  vast  gaseous  and  misty  mass,  destitute 
of  its  present  features,  and  incapable  of  being 
the  abode  of  life  ;  a  condition  for  which  the 
words  "  formless  and  void "  constitute  the 
best  possible  expression.  Let  it  be  observed 
here  that  it  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  that  it 
pleased  God  to  create  not  a  perfect  world,  but 
a  chaos ;  and  that  thus  while  the  Bible  claims 
for  God  even  "  chaos  and  old  night,"  it  opposes 
no  theological  obstacle  to  any  of  those  nebular 
or  other  hypotheses  by  which  astronomers 
have  sought  to  explain  the  origin  of  our  sys- 
tem, or  to  those  deductions  which  have  been 
drawn  from  a  consideration  of  its  chemical 
conditions  in  comparison  with  those  now 
known  to  exist  in  the  sun,  the  fixed  stars  and 
nebulae,  and  the  comets.* 

*  These  chemical  theories  are  admirably  explained  in  Dr. 
Hunt's  Essay  on  the  "  Chemistry  of  the  Primaeval  Earth."  Chem- 
ical and  Geological  Essays,  p.  35.  See  also  for  a  popular  exposi- 
tion of  them,  the  author's  "  Story  of  the  Earth,"  chap.  i. 


92  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

And  now  in  the  sacred  record  the  Almighty 
Word  breaks  the  silence,  and  with  the  fiat, 
"  Let  there  be  light,"  the  actual  work  of  re- 
ducing the  old  chaos  to  order  and  life  begins, 
and  begins  with  scientific  appropriateness  in 
the  introduction  of  these  great  forces  of  which 
solar  and  nebular  light  may  be  taken  as  the 
type  and  expression.  In  the  state  to  which 
the  earth  had  been  brought  it  was  a  sunlike 
star, 

"  Sphered  in  a  radiant  cloud,  for  yet  the  sun  was  not," 

as  Milton  says,  gathering  this  truth,  in  his 
poetic  insight,  from  the  Bible  in  advance  of 
<  science.  Further,  the  Hebrew  word  used  here 
for  light  includes  the  allied  forces  of  heat  and 
electricity,  which  with  light  now  emanate  from 
the  solar  photosphere.  It  represents  that 
incomprehensible  ether  which,  though  theoret- 
ically continuous,  vibrates,  and  whose  vibra- 
tions are  so  regulated  as  to  give  light  with  its 
prismatic  colors,  and  heat,  with  all  its  vast 
powers,  and  the  still  more  strange  and  won- 
derful actinic  power  which  puts  in  motion  all 
the  vital  machinery  of  plants,  and  so  is  the 
material  source  of  life.  If  science  can  any- 
where find  evidence  of  design  in  the  revela- 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE.  93 

tions  of  physical  agencies  ;  if  it  can  anywhere 
find  a  stepping-stone  to  lift  it  from  the  gross- 
ness  of  atomic  matter,  surely  it  is  here.  Fit- 
test of  all  emblems  of  God  is  this  heavenly 
light;  and  when  first  it  pulsated  through 
space,  then,  if  there  were  anywhere  in  the 
universe  eyes  to  behold  it  and  minds  to  think 
of  it,  might  it  be  said  that  there  existed  a 
physical  analogue  of  Him  who  is  light.  But 
another  stage  has  to  be  passed  through,  and 
the  earth  becomes  a  dull  yet  heated  mass,  with 
a  dense  pall  of  vaporous  substances  lower- 
ing over  it  and  constantly  descending  in  acid 
rains  on  its  heated  surface,  to  be  as  constantly 
thrown  off  in  vapor,  until  at  length  a  boiling 
saline  ocean  could  rest  upon  its  surface. 
Modern  solar  physics,  aided  by  the  spectro- 
scope, and  modern  chemistry  reasoning  on 
the  action  of  the  elements  in  an  earth  melted 
with  fervent  heat,  have  alone  enabled  us  to 
attach  due  significance  to  these  stages  of  the 
creative  work. 

Here  I  may  pause  to  notice  a  double  rela- 
tion in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  one  to 
science,  the  other  to  the  most  ancient  myths 
by  which  religion  had  been  corrupted  in  the 
days  of  Moses.     We  have  already  noticed  the 


94  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

remarkable  fact  that  Moses  can  distinguish 
light  from  luminaries,  and  that  he  attaches  so 
great  importance  to  the  introduction  of  that 
marvellous  ethereal  vibration  to  which  we 
owe  all  the  great  vivifying  powers  of  nature  ; 
and  that  thus,  without  any  actual  scientific 
teaching  or  committing  himself  to  any  theory, 
he  falls  into  harmony  with  all  that  we  know 
up  to  this  time  of  light,  heat,  and  electricity, 
all  of  which  are  included  under  the  word  he 
uses.  So  in  like  manner  he  seizes  here  on  some 
of  the  most  important  material  of  the  old 
superstitions  which  he  wishes  to  subvert. 
Light  and  the  dawn  or  twilight  are  great 
divinities  in  the  myths  of  antiquity ;  and  per- 
haps the  dawn,  as  the  mother  of  day  and  night, 
the  greatest  and  most  widely  adored  of  all. 
They,  too,  must  come  into  their  places  in  the 
Bible  as  the  handmaids  of  the  Almighty.  One 
laments,  in  studying  this  magnificent  revela- 
tion, that  it  has  not  been  put  to  its  full  use  by 
the  Christian  teachers  of  modern  times,  but 
perhaps  it  has  triumphs  yet  in  store,  not  only 
in  relation  to  the  old  myths  that  still  reign 
in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth,  but  with  refer- 
ence to  the  more  aggressive  superstitions  of 
modern  infidelity. 


IN  RELATION  TO    THE  BIBLE.  95 

When  next  the  historian  lifts  the  vail  we 
see  a  universal  ocean,  with  the  Spirit  or  breath 
of  God  brooding  on  the  face  of  the  waters. 
Here  again  we  have  a  stage  in  the  geological 
history  of  the  earth,  that  in  which  its  waters 
were  condensed  on  its  surface,  forming  a  shore- 
less sea,  before   those  foldings  of   the    crust 


which  formed  the  first  dry  land.  I  introduce 
this  here,  because  the  universal  ocean  is  to  be 
inferred  from  the  statements  under  the  work 
of  the  second  clay ;  and  because,  though  the 
brooding  Spirit  is  introduced  in  the  general 
statement  preceding  the  first  day,  I  conceive 
that  the  operation  referred  to  extends  up  to 
this  time.  The  exact  physical  significance  of 
this  operation  we  may  not  be  able  precisely 
to  explain.  The  old  Phoenician  cosmogony, 
which  is  related  to  that  of  the  Hebrews,  un- 
derstands it  to  be  a  mighty  wind  or  agitation 
of  the  vaporous  mass  covering  the  primeval 
ocean.  It  is  more  likely  that  the  meaning  is 
theological  rather  than  physical,  and  imports 
the  agency  of  that  Divine  Spirit  whose  emblem 
is  breath  or  the  wind,  and  that  it  is  primarily 
intended  to  reclaim  this  from  its  heathen  uses, 
and  to  give  it  its  place  as  an  emblem  of  a  per- 


96  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

son  of  the  Godhead  concerned  in  the  creative 
work. 

I  need  not  here  refer  again  to  the  produc- 
tion of  the  atmosphere  or  to  the  arrangement 
of  the  heavenly  luminaries,  except  to  remark 
that  the  order  is  that  of  nature ;  since  the 
atmospheric  firmament  must  first  be  cleared, 
in  order  to  the  heavenly  bodies  coming  into 
due  relation  to  the  earth,  and  since  the  con- 
densation of  our  system  might  require  long 
time  before  the  sun  and  the  larger  planets 
were  established  in  their  present  relations  to 
our  globe,  and  the  superabundant  cometary 
and  nebulous  matter  of  the  planetary  spaces 
got  rid  of. 

The  greatest  of  all  the  physical  changes 
implied  in  the  preparation  of  the  earth  is  that 
of  the  third  creative  day,  in  the  elevation  of 
the  dry  land  and  clothing  it  with  vegetation. 
It  is  in  perfect  accordance  with  what  we  know 
from  scientific  investigation  that  the  dry  land 
should  appear  before  the  completion  of  the 
final  arrangements  of  the  bodies  of  the  solar 
system ;  but  it  is  an  unexpected  and  hitherto 
unexplained  statement,  that  vegetation  should 
make  its  appearance  before  these  arrange- 
ments were  complete. 


si 


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6 


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1 1  § 


i-3      t>      O 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE.  97 

The  natural  cause  of  the  appearance  of  the 
first  dry  land  is  explained  by  geological  inves- 
tigation. .  We  left  the  earth,  at  the  end  of  the 
second  creative  icon,  with  a  solid  crust  sup- 
porting a  universal  ocean.  But,  as  time  ad- 
vanced, the  gradual  cooling  of  the  earth's 
mass  would  make  this  crust  too  small  for  its 
shrunken  size.  At  length  it  would  collapse 
and  fall  into  folds,  giving  ridges  of  land  and 
shallow  oceans.  That  this  process  actually 
occurred,  not  once  only,  but  repeatedly,  we 
know  from  the  folded  and  crumpled  condition 
of  the  rocks  along  their  old  lines  of  upheaval. 
The  section  in  Plate  III.  affords  an  actual  ex- 
ample of  this  crumpled  condition  of  the  oldest 
rocks.  The  time  required  for  this,  relatively 
to  the  contemporaneous  changes  in  other  parts 
of  the  solar  system,  has  not,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  been  calculated ;  but  some  rough  ap- 
proximation to  it  could  no  doubt  be  made. 
The  question  would  be,  Supposing  a  vaporous 
condition  of  our  system,  what  would  be  the 
time  necessary  to  enable  the  earth  to  acquire 
a  solid  crust,  relatively  to  that  needful  to  ena- 
ble the  sun  to  condense  to  itself  all  the  nebu- 
lous matter  within  its  reach,  and  to  enable  the 
larger  planets  to  assume  their  present  form  ? 


93  THE  SCIENCE   OF  THE  EARTH 

When  that  calculation  shall  be  made,  I  have 
no  doubt  that  it  will  vindicate  Moses  in  giving 
precedence  to  our  little  earth,  which  has  not 
only  completed  its  planetary  form,  but  gone 
through  a  vast  series  of  geological  changes, 
while  we  know  that  in  this  work  the  sun  and 
Jupiter  and  Saturn  have  still  much  to  do. 

Let  us  observe  here,  that  the  elevation  of 
the  first  dry  land  was  not  merely  a  barren  act, 
leading  to  no  consequences.  With  that  great 
change  began  volcanic  phenomena ;  the  meta- 
morphism  of  rocks ;  the  denuding  action  of  the 
rains,  waves,  and  breakers  on  the  land ;  the 
deposit  of  true  sedimentary  strata  in  the  sea ; 
the  unequal  thickening  of  the  earth's  shell ; 
the  establishment  of  the  great  oceanic  cur- 
rents ;  and,  in  short,  all  those  ceaseless  causes 
of  change  by  which,  in  the  progress  of  geo- 
logical time,  our  continents  have  acquired  their 
present  form  and  structure.  These  considera- 
tions serve  to  account  for  that  otherwise  sin- 
gular intimation  in  the  thirty-eighth  chapter 
of  Job,  that  the  "  morning  stars  sang  together, 
and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy,"  at 
this  stage  of  the  creative  work.  The  beings 
designated  by  these  terms  may  be  supposed  to 
have  seen  in  this  process,  not  merely  a  crump- 


IN  RELATION  TO    THE  BIBLE.  99 

ling  and  fracture  of  the  earth's  crust,  but  all 
that  this  would  lead  to  in  the  institution  of 
geological  changes  tending  to  the  production 
of  that  beautiful  variety  of  mountain,  hill,  and 
plain,  and  river,  valley  and  shore,  which  the 
land  now  presents,  and  which  fits  it  to  be  the 
abode  of  the  highest  forms  of  life  and  beauty 
known  to  our  planet. 

So  also  in  this,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  great 
work,  we  have  the  note  of  approval,  "  God 
saw  that  it  was  good."  To  our  view  that 
primeval  dry  land  would  scarcely  have  seemed 
good.  It  was  a  world  of  bare  rocky  peaks 
and  verdureless  valleys  :  here,  active  volcanoes, 
with  their  heaps  of  scorise  and  scarcely  cooled 
lavas;  there  vast  mud-flats,  recently  up- 
heaved from  the  bottom  of  the  waters ;  no- 
where even  a  blade  of  grass,  or  a  clinging 
lichen.  Yet  it  was  good  in  the  view  of  its 
Maker,  who  could  see  it  in  relation  to  the 
great  uses  for  which  he  had  made  it.  There 
is,  however,  a  farther  thought  suggested  by 
the  approval  of  the  great  Artificer.  In  the 
progress  of  creation,  it  seems  as  if  every  thing 
at  first  was  in  its  best  estate.  No  succeeding 
state  could  parallel  the  unbroken  symmetry  of 
the  vaporous  "  deep,"  or  the  brilliancy  of  our 


100  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE   EARTH 

globe  when  it  shone  out  as  a  little  star  with  a 
photosphere  of  its  own.  Before  the  elevation 
of  the  land,  the  atmospheric  currents,  and 
those  of  the  ocean  must  have  been  surpass- 
ingly regular,  and  in  their  best  and  most 
perfect  state.  The  first  dry  land  may  have  pre- 
sented crags  and  peaks  and  ravines,  in  a  more 
marvellous  manner  than  any  succeeding  con- 
tinents, —  even  as  the  dry  and  barren  moon 
now,  in  this  respect,  far  surpasses  the  earth. 
So  we  shall  find  in  the  progress  of  organic  be- 
ing, that  every  grade  of  life  was  in  its  highest 
and  best  estate  when  first  introduced,  and 
before  it  was  made  subordinate  to  some  higher 
type.  This  is  in  short  one  of  the  great  gen- 
eral laws  of  creation,  suggested  in  Genesis 
and  worked  out  in  detail  by  geology.* 

We  may  now  turn  for  a  moment  to  another 
aspect  of  these  questions.  Man,  according  to 
Genesis,  as  in  all  the  traditions  of  antiquity, 
is  earth-born,  but  the  earth  is  not  on  that 
account  a  great  goddess,  nor  is  the  sea  the 
domain  of  other  gods.  "  The  sea  is  God's,  and 
he  made  it.     His  hands  also  formed  the  dry 

*  Many  illustrations  of  it  will  be  found  in  the  "  Story  of  the 
Earth,"  where  I  have  specially  aimed  to  develop  these  general 
laws. 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE.  101 

land,"  and  accordingly  he  named  them  both. 
This  naming  has  a  further  significance.  God 
called  the' dry  land  "earth,"  the  same  term 
used  in  the  first  verse  for  the  whole  world. 
The  earth,  therefore,  of  the  following  passages, 
and  of  Scripture  generally,  is  specially  the  dry 
land.  Hence  the  earth  is  said  to  be  laid  on 
"foundations"  and  "pillars,"  and  supported 
above  the  water,  and  is  said  to  be  "in  the 
water  and  by  the  water,"  expressions  perfectly 
accurate  when  we  understand  that  the  con- 
tinents constitute  the  earth  referred  to. 

The  elevation  of  the  dry  land  is  perhaps 
more  frequently  referred  to  in  the  Bible  than 
any  other  cosmological  fact,  and  while  all  have 
been  unfairly  dealt  with,  this  has  been  pre- 
eminently so.  It  has  been  left  out  of  sight 
that  the  word  "  earth  "  is  by  the  terms  of  the 
record  restricted  to  the  dry  land,  and  there- 
fore that  it  is  this,  and  not  the  whole  globe, 
that  is  referred  to,  when  God's  power  in  up- 
holding it  above  the  waters  and  establishing 
it  so  that  it  cannot  be  moved  is  magnified. 
When  thus  rightly  understood,  nothing  can  be 
more  thoroughly  accurate  than  the  Bible 
language  respecting  those  elevated  portions 
of   the    crust  arched  and    pillared  above  the 


102  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE   EARTH 

waters,  and  in  which  we  have  our  secure 
abode,  except  when  the  earthquake  causes 
the  earth  to  tremble.  Take,  for  example,  the 
poetical  version  of  this  part  of  the  work  of 
the  six  days  as  it  appears  in  the  hymn  of 
creation. 

"  He  founded  the  earth  on  its  bases, 
That  it  should  not  be  moved  for  ever. 
Thou  didst  cover  it  with  the  deep  as  with  a  garment; 
The  waters  stood  above  the  mountains  ; 
At  thy  rebuke  they  fled ; 

At  the  voice  of  thy  thunder  they  hasted  away,  — 
While  mountains  rise,  valleys  sink, 
To  the  place  which  thou  didst  found  for  them." 

In  Job  xxviii.,  also,  we  have  nearly  all  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  earth  referred  to  in  a  manner 
at  once  grand  and  truthful. 

"  Surely  there  is  a  vein  of  silver, 

And  a  place  for  the  gold  which  men  refine; 

Iron  is  taken  from  the  earth, 

And  copper  is  molten  from  the  ore. 

To  the  end  of  darkness  and  to  all  extremes  man  searcheth 

For  the  stones  of  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death". 

He  opens  a  passage  (shaft)  from  where  men  dwell; 

Unsupported  by  the  foot,  they  hang  down  and  swing  to 

and  fro.* 
The  earth  —  out  of  it  cometh  bread ; 
And  beneath,  it  is  overturned  as  by  fire,  f 

*  Gesenius. 

t  Perhaps  "  changed,"  metamorphosed,  as  by  fire.  Conant  has 
"  destroyed." 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE.  103 

Its  stones  are  the  place  of  sapphires, 

And  it  hath  lumps  *  of  gold. 

The  path  (thereto)  the  bird  of  prey  hath  not  known; 

The  vulture's  eye  hath  not  seen  it;f 

The.  "wild  beasts'  whelps  have  not  trodden  it; 

The  lion  hath  not  passed  over  it. 

Man  layeth  his  hand  on  the  hard  rock; 

He  turneth  up  the  mountains  from  their  roots ; 

He  cutteth  channels  in  the  rocks; 

His  eye  seeth  every  precious  thing. 

He  restraineth  the  streams  from  trickling, 

And  bringeth  the  hidden  thing  to  light. 

But  where  shall  wisdom  be  found, 

And  where  is  the  place  of  understanding?  " 

This  passage,  incidentally  introduced,  gives 
ns  a  glimpse  of  the  knowledge  of  the  interior 
of  the  earth  and  its  products,  as  it  existed  in 
an  age  probably  anterior  to  that  of  Moses.  It 
brings  before  us  the  repositories  of  the  valuable 
metals  and  gems,  —  the  mining  operations, 
apparently  of  some  magnitude  and  difficulty, 
undertaken  in  extracting  them,  —  and  the 
wonderful  structure  of  the  earth  itself,  green 
and  productive  at  the  surface,  rich  in  precious 
minerals  beneath,  and  deeper  still  the  abode 
of  intense  subterranean  fires.     The  only  thing 

*  "  Dust "  in  our  version,  literally  lumps  or  "  nuggets." 
t  The  vulgar  and  incorrect  idea,  that  the  vulture  "  scents  the 
carrion  from  afar,"  so  often  reproduced  by  later  poets,  has  no 
place  in  the  Bible  poetry.     It  is  the  bird's  keen  eye  that  enables 
him  to  find  his  prey. 


104  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE   EARTH 

wanting,  to  give  completeness  to  the  picture, 
is  some  mention  of  the  fossil  remains  buried 
in  the  earth ;  and,  as  the  main  thought  is  the 
eager  and  successful  search  for  useful  minerals, 
this  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  defect.  The 
application  of  all  this  is  finer  than  almost 
any  thing  else  in  didactic  poetry.  Man  can 
explore  depths  of  the  earth  inaccessible  to  all 
other  creatures,  and  extract  thence  treasures 
of  inestimable  value ;  yet,  after  thus  exhaust- 
ing all  the  natural  .riches  of  the  earth,  he  too 
often  lacks  that  highest  wisdom  which  alone 
can  fit  him  for  the  true  ends  of  his  spiritual 
being.  How  true  is  all  this,  even  in  our  own 
wonder-working  clays !  A  poet  of  to-day 
could  scarcely  say  more  of  subterranean 
wonders,  or  say  it  more  truthfully  and  beauti- 
fully ;  nor  could  he  arrive  at  a  conclusion 
more  pregnant  with  the  highest  philosophy 
than  the  closing  words :  — 

"  The  fear  of  the  Lord,  that  is  wisdom; 
And  to  depart  from  evil  is  understanding." 

One  expression  only  in  the  Old  Testament 
gives  us  the  word  "  earth  "  in  its  astronomical 
meaning,  —  that  in  the  twenty-sixth  chapter 
of  Job  :  — 


IN  RELATION  TO   THE  BIBLE.  105 

"  He  stretched  out  the  north  over  empty  space; 
He  hanged  the  earth  upon  nothing," 

in  which  the  reference  seems  to  be  to  the 
revolution  of  the  visible  heavens  around  the 
pole-star,  in  connection  with  the  free  sus- 
pension of  the  earth  in  space,  —  altogether  a 
remarkable  evidence  of  the  views  which  so 
old  a  writer  was  enabled  to  reach  with  refer- 
ence to  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 

In  the  Mosaic  account,  the  land  elevated 
above  the  waters  is  in  the  same  creative  day 
clothed  with  vegetation.  Here  a  '  difficulty 
arises,  for  science  as  yet  knows  nothing  of  a 
vegetation  which  preceded  by  a  whole  period 
the  introduction  of  animals;  and  that  view 
which  overlooks  the  earlier  animals,  and  sup- 
poses the  plants  of  the  Devonian  and  Carbonif- 
erous periods  to  be  here  referred  to,  certainly 
involves  a  straining  of  the  record. 

Further,  the  vegetation  referred  to  is  ex- 
pressly said  to  have  included  not  merely  the 
lower  and  humbler  groups  of  plants,  the  deshe 
or  grass  of  our  version,  but  the  higher  phae- 
nogams,  or  plants  equivalent  to  them,  hav- 
ing fruit  and  seed,  and  trees  as  well  as  the 
herbaceous  plants.  This  is  not  in  accordance 
with  the  testimony  of  the  rocks,  as  at  present 


106  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE  EARTH 

known  to  us.  The  oldest  stratified  rocks  con- 
tain remains  of  humble  animals  of  the  sea. 
Land  plants  do  not  appear  as  fossils  until  a 
comparatively  late  geological  time.  Either 
there  is  some  discrepancy  here  between  the 
two  records,  or  there  is  an  old  plant-bearing 
formation  yet  undiscovered.  That  the  latter 
should  be  the  case  would  not  be  surprising. 
Vegetable  life  naturally  precedes  animal  life 
as  being  the  sole  source  of  the  food  of  ani- 
mals. We  know  that  land  existed  from  a 
period  at  least  as  old  as  that  of  the  first  animal 
remains,  and  it  would  be  somewhat  anomalous 
if  it  remained  during  all  the  earlier  periods  of 
geological  time  unclothed  with  vegetation. 
There  may,  therefore,  be  in  this  direction  dis- 
coveries in  store  for  geology,  though  from  the 
highly  metamorphic  condition  of  the  oldest 
sediments,  it  is  possible  that  no  remains  may 
exist  of  this  primeval  vegetation.*  There 
may  be  some  reference  to  this  first  vegetation 
in  the  statement  in  Gen.  ii.,  that  God  had  not 

*  If  any  Laurentian  or  Pre-laurentian  land  flora  should  be 
discovered,  analogy  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  it  would  consist 
of  plants  so  simple  in  structure  that  they  might  be  mistaken  for 
algse  while  they  might  be  tree-like  in  dimensions,  and  more  ad- 
vanced in  their  fructification  than  the  structure  of  their  stems  and 
other  vegetative  organs  would  lead  us  to  expect. 


Psilophyton  princeps,  one  of  the  oldest  Land  Plants  known  to  geology— from 
the  Upper  Silurian  and  Lower  Devonian.  (a)  Its  fruit.  {b)  Part  of 
its  Stem,  (c)  Scalariform  vessels  from  its  stem  magnified.  The  figure  is 
restored  from  specimens  described  by  the  author. 

Nature  and  the  Bible.  PLATE  IV.  P-  107- 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE   BIBLE.  107 

caused  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth,  but  that,  a 
mist  went  up  and  watered  the  face  of  the 
ground.  Now  it  happens  that  we  know,  by 
the  evidence  of  rain  marks,  that  there  was 
rain  as  far  back  as  the  primordial  ages,  so  that 
this  would  place  the  first  plants  probably  at 
least  as  far  back  as  the  Laurentian  age  of 
geology.  It  may  be  proper  to  add  here,  that 
as  it  is  the  plan  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis 
to  mention  the  original  introduction  of  each 
new  form  of  being,  and  not  the  details  of  its 
history,  a  vegetation  of  simple  structure,  if 
arborescent  in  its  habit,  might  be  held  suffi- 
ciently to  correspond  with  the  statement  as  to 
the  plants  of  the  third  clay.  The  oldest  land 
plants  of  which  any  satisfactory  remains  have 
yet  been  found  are  those  of  the  upper  Silurian, 
and  they  are  allies  of  the  modern  club-mosses, 
a  low  but  not  the  lowest  type  of  vegetation. 
Some  of  them  are  of  rare  beauty  and  perfec- 
tion of  structure.  I  figure  in  Plate  IV.  one  of 
them,  which  seems  to  have  been  extremely 
abundant  and  widely  diffused,  and  which  I 
am  enabled  to  restore  from  specimens  found 
by  myself. 

The  introduction  of  vegetable  life  forms  a 
new  era  in  the  world's  history.     The   earth 


108  THE   SCIENCE   OF   THE  EARTH 

brought  forth  plants,  yet  they  were  made 
after  their  species,  and,  when  made,  a  new 
relation  was  established  between  solar  light 
and  the  earth,  by  which  not  only  a  new  beauty 
was  given  to  the  world,  but  a  new  power  of 
producing  those  marvellous  organic  compounds 
on  which  animal  life,  with  all  its  farther  en- 
dowments, would  be  founded.  If  one  looks  at 
the  structure  of  a  leaf,  with  its  vessels  and 
fibres  drawing  into  it  the  soil  water  taken  up 
by  the  stem ;  its  microscopic  sac-like  cells  piled 
loosely  on  each  other,  its  hygrometric  breath- 
ing pores  opening  and  shutting  with  every 
atmospheric  change,  and  considers  that  this 
delicate  organ  is  fitted  for  exposure  to  wind, 
sun,  and  rain,  and  through  all  to  avail  itself  of 
undulations  transmitted  through  90,000,000 
of  miles  of  space,  by  means  of  which  it  can 
convert  all  the  gases  of  putrescent  matters 
from  the  soil  and  air  into  the  endless  variety  of 
products  of  the  plant,  we  have  before  us  a 
marvel  of  adaptation  perhaps  inferior  to  no 
other  in  affording  an  inductive  argument  for 
design. 

The  Bible  surely  accords  with  the  highest 
science  when  it  claims  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
with  all  its  wonders,  as  a  product  of  Almighty 


IN  RELATION   TO    THE  BIBLE.  109 

power,  and  it  touches  a  chord  which  every 
physiologist  can  appreciate  when  it  dwells  on 
the  fruit  and  seed,  the  organs  of  the  new  and 
wonderful  power  of  vegetable  reproduction, 
perpetuating  the  plant  after  its  kind ;  a  sub- 
ject we  might  profitably  dwell  on  here,  but 
that  it  will  come  up  again  in  connection  with 
animal  life. 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE   ORIGIN    AND  HISTORY   OF  ANIMAL   LIFE 
IN  NATURE   AND  IN   THE   BIBLE. 


LECTURE   IV. 

THE   ORIGIN  AND   HISTORY  OF  ANIMAL   LIFE 
IN  NATURE   AND   IN    THE   BIBLE. 


Origin  of  Life  in  Genesis. — Comparison  with  Geol- 
ogy.—  Physical  Theories  of  Life.  —  Theories  of 
Derivation  of  Species. 

HPHE  subject  of  this  lecture  is  the  origin 
and  progress  of  animal  life,  as  we  find  it 
brought  before  us  in  the  two  records  of  the 
Bible  and  of  geology ;  and  we  shall  here  give 
precedence  to  the  former.  After  the  comple- 
tion of  the  inorganic  creation  in  the  fourth 
creative  aeon,  the  story  of  the  great  work  in 
Genesis  proceeds  thus :  "  And  God  said,  Let 
the  waters  swarm  with  swarming  creatures, 
and  let  birds  fly  on  the  surface  of  the  expanse 
of  heaven.  And  God  created  great  reptiles 
and  every  living,  moving  thing,  which  the 
waters  brought  forth  abundantly  after  its  kind, 
and  every  bird  (or  flying  thing)  after  its 
kind."     In  the  next  creative  clay  the  mam- 

8 


114  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

malia  are  introduced,  and  are  distinguished 
into  the  two  groups  of  Herbivora  (bemah) 
and  Carnivora  (Jiay  tho-eretz) ;  and  in  the  same 
day  man  himself  is  created.  We  shall,  in  this 
place,  however,  attend  principally  to  the  work 
of  the  fifth  day,  as  the  connection  of  man  with 
the  other  mammalia  will  bring  them  under 
notice  in  the  sequel. 

Origin  and  History  of  Life  in  Genesis. 

We  may  first  consider  very  briefly  the 
terms  and  character  of  the  biblical  narrative, 
as  introductory  to  our  comparison  with  the 
results  of  geology.  It  will  be  observed  that, 
according  to  Genesis,  all  the  arrangements  of 
the  inorganic  world  were  perfected,  and  the 
dominion  of  what  geologists  term  "  existing 
causes  "  fully  introduced  before  the  creation 
of  animals.  Further,  a  whole  creative  seon 
elapsed  between  the  completion  of  these  ar- 
rangements, as  far  as  the  earth  was  concerned, 
and  that  event.  The  first  animals  are  pro- 
duced by  the  waters  ;  but  these  waters  are 
not  now  the  shoreless  ocean  of  the  first  day. 
They  include  depths  and  shallows  of  the  sea, 
estuaries,  and  probably  lakes  and  fresh-water 
streams  as  well.     Thus  they  afford  all  the  con- 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  115 

ditions  required  for  a  varied  and  abundant 
aquatic  fauna. 

Again,  the  first  animals  belong  to  the  lower 
grades  of  that  kingdom.  The  term  sheretz, 
used  to  denote  them,  does  not  apply,  as  we 
would  infer  from  the  translation  "  creeping 
things  "  of  our  version,  to  their  locomotion, 
but  to  their  reproduction.  It  implies  their 
fecundity,  and  this  again  implies  that  low 
grade  of  organization  which  admits  of  repro- 
duction in  its  most  prolific  forms  ;  since  the 
lower  and  simpler  types  of  animal  life  are 
those  which  can  multiply  in  the  greatest 
variety  of  ways  and  with  the  greatest  ra- 
pidity. A  comparison  with  other  passages  in 
the  Pentateuch,  and  especially  with  the  lists  of 
animals  in  Leviticus,  will  show  that  this  term 
applies  chiefly  to  the  invertebrate  animals, 
with  the  fishes  and  a  few  of  the  humbler 
members  of  other  vertebrate  groups. 

One  peculiar  group  of  animals  is  specially 
characterized  in  the  recapitulation  or  second 
member  of  the  clause,  —  the  tanninim,  trans- 
lated u  great  whales "  in  our  version,  but 
which  a  comparison  of  passages  shows  is  really 
the  generic  name  for  the  larger  and  more 
formidable  reptiles,  of  which  the  crocodile  of 


116  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

the  Nile,  "  the  great  tannin  that  lieth  in  the 
rivers,"  is  the  representative.  The  confusion 
of  the  meanings  of  the  word  has  been  shown 
by  Gesenius  to  depend  on  the  error  of  identi- 
fying it  with  the  word  tan,  which  is  prob- 
ably the  name  of  a  very  different  creature, 
—  the  jackal.  The  distinction  is  very  well 
seen  in  the  fifty-first  chapter  of  Jeremiah, 
where  the  king  of  Babylon  is  introduced, 
under  the  emblem  of  a  great  crocodile  (tan- 
nin), devouring  the  nations ;  while  it  is  threat- 
ened that  the  jackal  (tan)  shall  howl  in  his 
ruined  palaces.  A  comparison  of  the  not  very 
numerous  passages  in  which  this  word  occurs 
will  fully  vindicate  the  translation  "  great 
reptiles,"  and  thus  suffice  to  characterize  the 
fifth  creative  geon,  or  the  latter  half  of  it,  as 
that  of  the  "  reign  of  reptiles."  # 

The  birds  and  the  reptiles  come  in  together 
as  allied  and  contemporaneous  groups,  and  the 
introduction  of  animal  life  is,  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  tanninim,  said  to  be  a  "  creation," 
a  term  not  used  before  in  the  narrative,  except 
in  reference  to  the  initial  act  of  the  beginning. 

*  Soe  also  "  Archaia,"  page  189,  and  Appendix  G,  in  the  same 
work;  in  which  will  be  found  also  discussions  of  the  import  of  the 
other  terms  referred  to  in  the  text. 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  117 

Farther,  while  one  creative  day  is  assigned  to 
the  introduction  and  growth  of  invertebrate 
life,  with  that  of  the  fish,  the  reptile,  and  the 
bird;  in  the  last  creative  aeon,  the  herbivo- 
rous and  carnivorous  mammalia  are  introduced 
along  with  man. 

Comparison  with  Geology. 

These  preliminaries  being  understood,  we 
may  next  proceed  to  inquire  what  bearing  the 
facts  ascertained  by  the  modern  science  of 
palaeontology  have  on  this  scheme  of  animal 
creation. 

The  first  and  a  very  startling  conclusio 
that  we  reach  here  is,  that  the  fifth  and  sixth 
days  of  the  Mosaic  record  cover  nearly  the 
whole  of  geological  time.  Of  the  earlier  crea- 
tive aeons  geological  science  knows  nothing  ex- 
cept by  inference.  Only  as  the  work  reaches 
that  period  when  animal  life  made  its  appear- 
ance, does  its  record  begin.  All  our  geolog- 
ical formations  down  to  ,the  Laurentian  con- 
tain fossils ;  and  the  reduction  of  animal  types 
to  fewer  and  lower  forms,  as  we  go  backward, 
seems  to  point  to  the  Laurentian  period  as 
near  the  beginning  of  life  on  the  earth. 

A  second  conclusion  is,  that  both  records 


113  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

agree  in  assuring  us  that  the  general  arrange- 
ments of  inorganic  nature  were  perfected 
before  the  introduction  of  animals.  In  the 
biblical  history  the  sea  and  land  had  been 
separated,  and  all  the  arrangements  of  the 
atmosphere  and  the  relations  of  the  earth  to 
the  heavenly  bodies  completed.  So,  in  the 
geological  record,  the  eyes  of  Silurian  trilo- 
bites  were  fitted  for  the  same  conditions  as 
those  of  existing  animals  of  their  tribe.  The 
structure  of  the  trees  of  the  Devonian  and 
Carboniferous  formations  shows  that  the  sap 
moved,  and  all  the  other  changes  of  vegetable 
life  were  carried  on  as  at  present.  Impres- 
sions of  rain  drops  occur  in  some  of  the  earli- 
est rocks.  Hills  and  valleys,  swamps  and 
lagoons,  rivers,  estuaries,  coral  reefs,  and 
shell  beds  must  have  existed  at  the  date  of 
the  oldest  formations ;  and  all  conspire  to 
show  the  fixity  not  merely  of  physical  laws, 
but  of  the  arrangements  and  correlations  of 
those  laws,  probably  from  the  beginning  of 
geological  time. 

Thirdly.     It  is  remarkable  that  both  records 

concur  in  ascribing  the  origin  and  earliest  ex- 

\\       istence  of  animal  life  to  the  sea,  where  we  are 

told  there  are  "  creeping  things  innumerable." 


Early  Sheretzim  of  the  Waters. — Restorations  of  Trilobites  and  other  Crusta- 
ceans, Worms,  Pteropods  and  Zoophytes  of  the  Primordial  Period — 
adapted  from  the  "Story  of  the  Earth." 

Nature  and  the  Bible.  PLATE  V.  p.  118. 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  119 

The  sea  is  even  yet  the  great  storehouse  of 
animal  life,  and  it  would  seem  for  long  geo- 
logical ages  to  have  been  the  only  theatre  of 
its  development.  This  great  cosmical  truth, 
revealed  to  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophet, 
is  not  without  its  scientific  significance.  In  a 
physiological  point  of  view,  it  indicates  the 
important  fact  that  the  conditions  of  animal 
life  are  easier  in  the  sea  than  on  the  land. 
There  both  the  most  minute  and  the  grandest 
forms  of  life  can  find  suitable  conditions,  and 
there  the  feebler  tissues  and  the  less  energetic 
vitality  can  succeed  in  the  battle  of  life.  In 
its  geological  relations,  it  shows  that  it  was 
necessary  that  the  land  itself,  to  be  suitable 
to  the  support  of  the  higher  forms  of  life, 
must  be  born  from  the  sea,  and  that  the  action 
of  marine  organisms  in  heaping  up  beds  of 
their  skeletons  was  one  of  the  necessary  prep- 
arations for  the  aotual  condition  of  our  con- 
tinents. 

Fourthly.  Both  records  give  us  a  grand 
procession  of  dynasties  of  life,  beginning  from 
the  lower  forms  and  culminating  in  man. 
This  is  necessarily  more  complete  in  the  geo- 
logical record,  so  far  at  least  as  details  are 
concerned.     But  the  relation  is  precisely  that 


120 


ORIGIN  AND   HISTORY 


o 


U 


\ 


of  a  broad,  general  sketch  from  the  pen  of  an 
historian  to  the  results  of  the  patient  search 
of  the  antiquary  into  the  buried  relics  which 
illustrate  that  same  history.  The  geological 
succession  of  life  has  already  been  given  in  a 
condensed  form  in  the  table  attached  to  the 
last  lecture  ;  but  we  may  here  consider  it  a 
little  more  in  detail. 

The  oldest  animal  known  to  geology  is  the 
JSozoon  Canadense,  found  in  the  lower 
Laurentian,  the  most  ancient  series  of  rocks 
known  to  us.  It  is  a  member  of  the  group  of 
Protozoa,  —  very  simple,  gelatinous  animals,  as 
near  in  their  structure  to  the  elementary  ger- 
minal matter,  which  seems  to  be  the  special 
seat  of  life  in  all  animals,  as  it  is  possible  for 
individual  living  things  to  be.  The  modern 
representatives  of  this  group  inhabit  both  the 
ocean  and  the  fresh  waters ;  but  it  if  in  the 
former  that  they  most  abound,  and  it  is  there 
that  they  became  clothed  with  calcareous 
shells,  which  have  accumulated  in  the  sea  to 
form  great  limestone  beds.*     The  represent- 

*  Doubts  have  been  thrown  on  the  animal  nature  of  Eozoon  ; 
but  these  seem  due  rather  to  preconceived  prejudices  than  to  any 
thing  defective  in  the  evidence.  The  whole  subject  will  be  fully 
treated  in  a  work  now  in  the  press,  —  "  The  Dawn  of  Life."  See 
also  Appendix  A. 


SSSaE**'' 


Eozoon  Canade?ise,  the  oldest  known  of  the  Sheretzim  of  the  Waters. — Portions  of 
the  Skeleton,  from  a  nature-print,  taken  from  a  specimen  etched  with  acid. 
The  laminated  portion  shows  the  calcareous  skeleton  in  white.  The  upper 
right  hand  corner  shows  inorganic  limestone  and  serpentine,  with  frag- 
ments of  Eozoon.  The  lower  figure  is  a  part  of  one  of  the  laminse  en- 
larged, showing  the  tubulated  cell-wall  at  (a),  and  the  Supplemental 
Skeleton,  with  canals,  at  (b). 

Nature  and  the  Bible.  PLATE  I.  p.  121. 


FRONTISPIECE. 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  121 

ative  of  this  group  in  the  Laurentian  era  was 
of  gigantic  size,  forming  great  reefs  of  calca- 
reous rock,  after  the  manner  of  modern  corals, 
and  it  seems  to  have  had  few  if  any  rivals  in 
the  occupancy  of  those  ancient  seas.  The 
skeleton  of  Eozoon  consisted  of  a  series  of 
plates  of  calcareous  matter,  perforated  with 
pores  and  canals,  and  having  spaces  or  cham- 
bers between  them  for  the  lodgment  of  the 
soft  gelatinous  body  of  the  animal.  In  Plate 
I.  the  appearance  of  this  skeleton,  as  preserved 
in  the  Laurentian  rocks  of  Canada,  is  well 
seen.  That  this  was  the  first  created  kind  of 
animal  we  cannot  affirm.  It  is  merely  the 
oldest  as  yet  known  to  us ;  but  it  may  have 
been  the  first ;  and  the  fact  that  the  earliest 
known  type  of  animal  is  of  this  very  simple 
and  generalized  structure,  is  significant  in 
connection  with  the  scriptural  intimation  that 
the  waters  were  commanded  to  "  swarm  with  " 
the  first  animals ;  as  if  these  were  not  built  on 
or  derived  from  any  previous  organized  being, 
as  for  example  the  plant,  but  created  directly 
in  that  grade  of  being  in  which  the  nearest 
approach  is  made  to  the  inorganic. 

Leaving  the   Laurentian  age,  in  the  next 
succeeding  or  Primordial,  a  great  and  wonder- 


122  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

ful  development  of  life  occurs ;  and  we  have 
now  species  belonging  not  only  to  the  Pro- 
tozoa, but  to  the  groups  of  Radiates,  Mollusks, 
and  Articulates,  no  longer  merely  gelatinous 
animals,  but  presenting  most  complicated  parts 
and  organs.  The  teeming  multitudes  of  these 
creatures  in  the  Cambrian  and  Silurian  pe- 
riods were  so  great  that  thick  beds  of  lime- 
stone are  often  made  up  of  fragments  of  their 
skeletons,  and  it  appears  that  the  seas  then 
brought  forth  the  lower  forms  of  life  in  abun- 
dance since  unsurpassed.    (See  Plate  V.) 

As  we  ascend  in  the  geological  series,  ver- 
tebrate life  has  its  commencement,  beginning, 
like  the  lower  forms,  in  the  waters,  and  repre- 
sented at  first  only  by  the  fishes  ;  and  it  is  not 
until  we  are  approaching  the  close  of  the 
Palaeozoic  that  reptile  life  is  introduced.  Rep- 
tiles and  birds  make  their  appearance  abun- 
dantly in  the  earlier  and  middle  Mesozoic,  in 
which  also  reptilian  life  culminates  in  the 
gigantic  and  multiform  Dinosaurs  and  their 
allies,  of  what  is  par  excellence  the  Reptilian 
age.  In  like  manner,  the  record  of  creation, 
after  stating  the  creation  of  lower  forms,  goes 
on  to  specify  the  gigantic  reptilian  animals  of 
the  Mesozoic  by  the  term  tanninim,  and  con- 


Tanninim   of  the    Fifth  Bay. — Restorations    of  Mesozoic    Reptiles; — adapted 
from  the  "  Story  of  the  Earth." 

Nature  and  the  Bible.  PLATE  VI.  p.  123. 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  123 

nects  with  them  the  birds,  which,  with  allied 
winged  reptiles,  were  their  contemporaries  in 
geological  time.  We  may  note  here  a  still 
closer  agreement,  when  we  consider  that 
according  to  both  records  gigantic  carnivorous 
reptiles  were  lords  of  creation  during  at  least 
the  latter  half  of  one  long  creative  period. 
(See  Plate  VI.) 

So,  as  we  pass  into  the  next  creative  seon, 
the  mammalia,  represented  in  the  Mesozoic  of 
geology  by  only  a  few  small  species,  become 
dominant;  and  here  we  have,  in  the  promi- 
nence given  to  the  larger  Herbivora  (the  he- 
moth  of  Genesis),  a  position  corresponding  to 
their  grandeur  and  dominance  in  the  Eocene ; 
while  in  the  introduction  of  the  beasts  of  the 
earth  or  carnivorous  mammalia,  we  have  the 
inauguration  of  an  era,  the  later  Tertiary,  in 
which  these  assume  the  highest  rank  in  nature, 
and  take  the  place  of  the  great  reptilian  life- 
destroyers  of  the  Mesozoic.  Lastly  in  this 
long  progression,  man  appears,  not  the  pro- 
duct of  a  separate  day,  but,  in  accordance 
with  the  revelations  of  geology,  at  the  close 
of  the  same  great  period  in  which  the  mam- 
malia became  dominant.  And  then  follows 
the  -rest  of  the  Creator,  in  which  man  was  to 


124  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

carry  out  first  in  Eden,  and  afterward  in  the 
whole  earth  the  will  of  his  Maker,  in  replenish- 
ing the  earth  and  subduing  it  under  the  rule 
of  his  higher  intelligence. 

The  progress  in  animal  life  thus  shortly 
sketched,  is  sufficient  to  show  the  remarkable 
manner  in  which  Revelation  had  long  ago 
foreshadowed  what  in  these  last  days  the 
rocks  have  opened  their  mouths  to  tell. 

Fifthly.  With  reference  to  the  precise  man- 
ner of  the  introduction  of  life,  or  the  secondary 
causes,  if  any,  employed  in  introducing  its 
various  forms,  neither  record  gives  any  defi- 
nite information.  In  the  sacred  record  the 
term  "  create  "  is  used  in  the  case  of  the  first 
animal  life  and  of  that  of  man.  The  other 
stages  are  indicated  by  a  word  of  less  power, 
"  make,"  and  by  the  expressions,  "  let  the 
waters  bring  forth,"  "  let  the  land  bring 
forth."  So  in  the  geological  record  the  waters 
and  the  land  bring  forth  successive  dynasties 
of  life,  which  continue  for  a  time  and  perish, 
without  telling  us  how  or  why  they  appear, 
and  giving  us  few  hints  even  as  to  the  causes 
of  their  decay  and  disappearance. 

Modern  philosophical  speculation  has  en- 
deavored to  press  scientific  facts  into  its  ser- 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  125 

vice  with  the  view  of  supplying  this  deficiency 
in  our  knowledge,  and  the  greater  number  of 
these  speculations  have  in  our  time  taken  one 
form,  that  of  derivation,  or  the  descent,  with 
modification,  of  one  species  from  another. 
They  are  based  on  the  order  of  succession 
of  life  as  it  appears  in  geology,  which  such 
views  would  refer  not  merely  to  the  plan  of 
the  Creator,  but  to  a  progression  of  animals 
under  natural  laws ;  and  also  on  the  analogy 
between  the  development  of  the  individual 
animal  from  the  embryo  and  the  progress  of 
animal  life  in  geological  time. 

These  two  classes  of  facts  they  divorce  from 
the  plan  and  will  of  the  Almighty,  at  least  in 
so  far  as  any  direct  action  is  concerned,  and 
explain  by  certain  laws  which  they  profess  to 
derive  from  natural  facts.  In  this  way  they 
seek  to  satisfy  the  desire  of  the  mind  for  a 
cause  of  things,  without  penetrating  to  a  pri- 
mary cause  on  the  one  hand  or  troubling 
themselves  as  to  final  causes  on  the  other. 
These  speculations  may  with  advantage  be 
considered  under  two  distinct  divisions  :  the 
one  including  hypotheses  as  to  the  possible 
origination  of  life  without  any  creative  act; 
the  other  those  which  assume  some  forms  of 


126  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

life  as  created  or  otherwise  introduced,  and 
proceed  to  explain  the  derivation  of  other  and 
higher  forms  from  these  primitive  types. 

Physical  Theories  of  Life. 

We  may  descend  at  once  to  the  lowest 
depth  of  these  hypotheses,  by  referring  to 
Strauss,  who.  after  laboring  for  a  lifetime  to 
rationalize  the  Gospels,  at  length  in  his  old 
age  accepted  Darwin  as  the  great  apostle  of  a 
new  religion,  and  was  content  to  believe  that 
all  the  phenomena  of  life  and  spirit  were 
merely  physical,  and  to  utter  that  unhappy 
confession  of  unbelief.  "  If  we  could  speak 
as  honest,  upright  men,  we  must  acknowledge 
that  we  are  no  longer  Christians."  It  is  fair, 
however,  to  say  here  that  Strauss,  as  is  natu- 
ral, goes  beyond  his  teachers,  and  affirms  more 
than  many  evolutionists  will  admit.  Still, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  doing  so  he 
merely  does  what  nine-tenths  of  earnest  men 
will  do  if  they  accept  his  premises.  It  is  easy 
for  shallow  men  on  whom  religious  feelings 
have  little  hold,  or  who  regard  religion  as 
merely  a  thing  of  sentiment,  or  a  device  to 
tickle  the  senses  and  quiet  the  conscience  of 
the  multitude,  to    say  that  they   can    reject 


OF  ANIMAL   LIFE.  127 

Moses  without  rejecting  Christ ;  but  common 
sense  cannot  be  deceived  in  this  way,  and 
Strauss  is  merely  in  this  an  example  of  an 
honest  thinker  who,  having  drifted  from  the 
belief  in  revelation,  has  founded  his  faith  on 
what,  in  many  cases  incorrectly,  he  fancies  to 
be  proved  results  of  scientific  investigation. 

When  Strauss  considers  it  proved,  as  he 
does,  that  physical  forces  have  been  shown  to 
be  sufficient  to  account  for  all  that  has  been 
referred  to  life  and  spirit,  he  goes  altogether 
beyond  any  thing  that  scientific  discovery  has 
yet  revealed.  If  we  reduce  a  living  organism 
to  a  single  vegetable  cell,  or  to  the  microscopic 
grain  of  jelly-like  matter  which  constitutes  one 
of  the  simplest  animalcules,  we  have  in  such  a 
cell,  or  in  such  an  animalcule,  structures  not 
accounted  for  by  any  physical  or  chemical  law, 
or  combination  of  such  laws,  and  phenomena 
of  life  which  stand  alone  among  forces,  and 
have  not  yet  been  shown  to  be  caused  by 
either  physical  or  chemical  energy.  Farther, 
when  such  an  organism  dies,  we  have  as  yet 
no  means  of  isolating  or  registering  the  force 
which  it  has  lost,  and  yet  all  the  effects  for- 
merly produced  by  this  force  have  disappeared. 
Whether  ultimately,  as  heat  and  light  have 


128  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

been  shown  to  be  allied  forces  or  modifications 
of  one  force,  it  will  be  found  that  any  combi- 
nation of  these  forces  may  produce,  develop, 
or  be  converted  into  vital  force,  we  cannot 
say ;  but  that  this  has  not  been  clone  or  even 
shown  to  be  possible  is  certain. 

It  is  easy,  with  some  physiologists^and  phy- 
sicists, to  assume  this,  and  to  ridicule  those 
who  believe  in  vital  force  -,  but  when  we  ex- 
amine their  mode  of  treating  the  subject,  we 
find  that  they  give  us  figures  of  speech  and 
vague  analogies  instead  of  facts.  When,  for 
example,  Huxley  says  that  we  might  as  well 
attribute  the  formation  of  water,  when  hydro- 
gen and  oxygen  combine,  to  an  imaginary 
principle  of  aquosity  as  the  properties  of  living 
matter  to  a  vital  force,  his  own  words  show 
that  he  is  merely  begging  the  question  at 
issue.  He  says,  "If  the  nature  and  proper- 
ties of  water  may  properly  be  said  to  result 
from  the  nature  and  disposition  of  its  compo- 
nent molecules,  I  can  find  no  intelligible 
ground  for  refusing  to  say  that  the  properties 
of  protoplasm  result  from  the  nature  and  prop- 
erties of  its  molecules."  Now  if  by  protoplasm 
here  be  meant  living  protoplasm,  the  whole 
matter  to  be  Droved  is  taken  for  granted.     If 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  129 

protoplasm  on  the  other  hand  be  taken  to 
mean  dead  albumen,  regarded  merely  as  a 
chemical  compound,  then  the  statement  has 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  subject  in 
hand,  and  it  is  so  far  inaccurate  that  even  dead 
protoplasm  has  not  yet  been  produced  by 
merely  physical  or  chemical  means ;  but  tak- 
ing the  two  substances  at  precisely  the  same 
value  as  chemical  compounds,  the  denial  that 
some  new  force  has  actuated  the  protoplasm, 
when  it  assumes  the  varied  functions  of  life,  is 
as  unreasonable  as  the  denial  that  some  new 
force  has  taken  hold  of  the  water  when  it 
ascends  into  a  pump  or  into  the  branches  of  a 
tree.  Whatever  is  the  nature  of  the  force, 
and  however  dissimilar  in  these  different 
cases,  it  is  unquestionably  superadded  to  the 
merely  chemical  forces  combining  the  atoms 
of  the  compound. 

Or  take  such  a  statement  as  that  made  by 
Tynclall  in  a  work  extensively  used  as  a  text- 
book. "  Molecular  forces  determine  the  form 
which  the  solar  energy  shall  assume.  In  the 
one  case  this  energy  is  so  conditioned  by  its 
atomic  macliinejry  as  to  result  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  cabbage  ;  in  another  case  it  is  so  con- 
ditioned as  to  result  in  the  formation  of  an 

9 


ISO  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

oak.  So  also  as  regards  the  reunion  of  car- 
bon and  oxygen  :  the  form  of  this  reunion  is 
determined  by  the  molecular  machinery 
through  which  the  combining  force  acts ;  in 
the  one  case  the  action  may  result  in  the 
formation  of  a  man,  while  in  the  other  it  may 
result  in  the  formation  of  a  grasshopper." 

This  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  imper- 
fect and  inaccurate  statement  of  the  facts 
of  the  case,  and  if  taken  as  an  exposition  of 
the  origin,  cause,  or  conditions  of  existence 
of  living  beings,  is  certain  to  mislead.  In  the 
first  place,  though  a  cabbage  could  not  grow 
without  solar  energy  any  more  than  it  could 
grow  without  water  or  potash  or  many  other 
things,  it  cannot  be  in  any  sense  called  a  form 
of  solar  energy,  neither  have  we  any  evidence 
that  solar  energy,  acting  for  ever,  could  pro- 
duce a  cabbage,  without  a  previous  cabbage 
seed.  Nor  is  it  true  that  the  difference  be- 
tween a  cabbage  and  an  oak  is  merely  a  differ- 
ence in  form  of  solar  energy,  unless  indeed 
we  assume  that  the  germ  of  the  cabbage  and 
of  the  oak,  with  all  their  diverse  vital  powers, 
have  also  been  created  by  this  same  solar 
energy.  But  in  this  case  we  should  have  to 
assume  that  the  omnipotent  solar  energy,  even 


OF  ANIMAL    LIFE.  131 

when  unconditioned  by  any  machinery  what- 
ever, could  produce  these  different  forms  and 
structures.  Further,  it  is  untrue  that  either 
a  man  or  a  grasshopper  can  be  produced  by  a 
reunion  of  carbon  and  oxygen,  or  that  any 
reunion  of  elements  could  have  such  effect 
without  the  previous  existence  of  men  and 
grasshoppers.  Indeed  the  solar  energy  has 
much  less  to  do  with  the  grasshopper  than 
with  the  cabbage,  since  its  direct  action  on 
the  grasshopper  is  merely  concerned  in  pro- 
ducing its  vegetable  pabulum.  But  it  is  use- 
less to  follow  such  random  statements  any 
further  than  to  say  that  when  men  like  Strauss 
are  so  deluded  as  to  accept  them  as  conclu- 
sions of  science,  we  need  not  wonder  at  their 
falling  into  any  amount  of  error.  It  is  the 
more  necessary  when  utterances  of  this  kind  — 
examples,  by  the  way,  of  an  exaggerated  and 
sensational  style  of  science-teaching  too  com- 
mon in  our  time  —  pass  current  with  the 
multitude,  as  sufficient  to  explain  the  origin  of 
life,  that  educated  men  should  have  such  gen- 
eral knowledge  of  nature  as  may  enable  them 
to  judge  of  the  validity  of  the  generalizations 
thus  promulgated  in  the  sacred  name  of  sci- 
ence.    Stripping,  however,  such  views  as  those 


132  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

just  referred  to,  of  their  more  fanciful  ad- 
juncts and  applications,  they  merely  bring 
before  us  the  wonderful  manner  in  which  the 
properties  of  matter,  and  the  forces  which 
actuate  it  are  placed  in  relation  to  the  organ- 
ism and  its  peculiar  vital  powers.  How  the 
organism  was  at  first  constructed  and  endowed 
with  powers  so  different  from  those  of  dead 
matter  they  do  not  inform  us,  and  still  less  do 
they  enable  us  to  dispense  with  creative 
power. 

Theories  of  Derivation, 

But  life  being  once  introduced  in  some  of 
its  lower  forms,  whether  animal  or  vegetable, 
is  it  necessary  to  affirm  in  addition  that  ani- 
mals and  plants  were  created  after  their  spe- 
cies ?  May  we  not  be  content  to  suppose 
that  lower  forms  of  life  were  gradually 
changed  into  higher,  and  that  thus  the  earth 
was  peopled  in  its  successive  ages  ?  Now,  in 
so  far  as  theology  is  concerned,  this  may  be  a 
matter  of  little  consequence,  so  long  as  we 
limit  our  attention  to  the  lower  animals ;  but 
when  we  arrive  at  man  the  case  is  very  differ- 
ent, and  the  course  followed  by  the  advocates 
of  such  views  is  to  brincr  first  before  us  the 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  133 

origin  of  the  lower  animals,  and  the  lowest 
among  them,  and  having  familiarized  us  with 
the  idea  of  descent  with  modification  in  their 
case,, to  ascend  to  man,  and  show  that  the 
same  law  applies  to  him  not  only  in  his  mate- 
rial nature,  but  in  whatever  of  higher  powers 
and  sentiments  there  may  be  in  him.  Dar- 
win, the  great  apostle  in  our  day  of  these 
views,  does  not  seem  to  have  gone  so  far  as 
absolutely  to  identify  the  physical  and  the 
vital,  in  the  way  that  Huxley,  Tyndall,  and 
others  have  done.  He  seems  to  require  that 
some  living  forms,  however  few  and  simple, 
shall  be  given  to  him  to  begin  with.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  there  is  a  certain  incon- 
sistency in  this ;  since,  if  the  act  of  creation 
has  been  even  once  performed,  there  is  no 
good  reason  to  deny  that  it  may  have  been 
repeated.  In  a  philosophy  of  this  kind,  how- 
ever, some  first  point  must  be  reached  where 
the  premises  must  be  assumed,  and  it  is  per- 
haps as  well  to  stop  at  the  great  gap  between 
the  living  and  the  non-living  as  anywhere 
else,  and  this  is  where  Darwin  has  found  it 
convenient  to  stop. 

Granting,  then,  as  material  for  the  process, 
a  few  of  the  more  ancient  and  lower  forms  of 


134  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY     ^ 

life,  as,  for  example,  the  old  Eozoon  of  the 
Laurentian.  or  a  few  mollusks  and  crustaceans 
of  the  Primordial,  have  we  any  evidence  that 
out  of  these  the  remainder  of  the  animal  king- 
dom has  been  evolved?  I  take  the  animal 
kingdom  because  in  it  the  record  is  more 
varied  and-  complete.  A  difficulty  meets  us 
here  at  the  outset,  with  reference  to  the  pre- 
cise nature  of  the  question  with  which  we 
have  to  do.  It  is  that  as  to  the  distinction 
between  species  and  varieties.  Species  of 
animals  are  supposed  to  be  separated  from 
each  other  by  well-marked  lines  of  difference, 
and  they  have  not  the  power  of  so  intermixing 
with  each  other  as  to  produce  continuously 
fertile  progeny.  They  stand  thus  as  units 
in  our  systems  of  natural-history  classification. 
But  species  are  more  or  less  variable  under 
the  influence  of  external  conditions,  and  the 
varieties  so  formed  may  or  may  not  be  true 
species.  I  say  "  may  not ;  "  for,  though  I  believe 
that  they  are  not,  the  derivationist  tries  to 
break  clown  the  line  between  species  and  vari- 
eties. It  results  from  this  that  there  may  be 
different  views  as  to  the  limits  of  species. 
Man  himself  has,  for  example,  been  broken 
clown  into   different  species;   while  by  most 


OF  ANIMAL   LIFE.  135 

naturalists  the  diversities  of  men  are  re- 
garded as  of  the  nature  of  races  and  varieties. 
The  best  British  naturalists  of  our  day  have 
usually  held  to  large  specific  aggregates  ;  the 
continental  naturalists,  like  your  own  Agassiz 
and  his  disciples  in  this  country,  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  naming  as  a  distinct  species  every 
slightly  different  form.  This  is  still  an  unset- 
tled point,  though  I  think  the  error  has  been 
rather  in  making  too  many  species  than  two 
few,  the  prejudices  and  interests  of  observ- 
ers tending  that  way.  It  is  plain,  however, 
that  if  we  hold  that  species  were  created  sepa- 
rately, and  if  out  of  one  group  of  animals  one 
naturalist  makes  ten  species  and  another  three, 
wre  are  not  bound  to  claim  the  ten  species  as 
separate  creations  unless  we  regard  them  as 
well  founded. 

There  is  another  caution  to  be  noticed  on 
the  theological  side.  The  verbal  precision  of 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  must  strike  every 
candid  student.  Yet  the  writer  uses  different 
formulas  for  the  introduction  of  different 
grades  of  being.  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth," 
is  the  formula  for  plants.  "Let  the  waters 
bring  forth/'  is  the  formula  for  the  lower 
animals.     God  "  created  ".the  great  tanninim  ; 


136  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

so  the  earth  "  brought  forth  "  the  mammalia, 
and  God  "  made  "  or  formed  them,  but  man 
he  "  created."  We  can  see  distinctly  by  a 
comparison  of  the  use  of  these  expressions  in 
the  record  itself  and  in  other  parts  of  Scripture 
that  they  are  not  used  at  random,  and  that 
they  have  different  degrees  of  significance ; 
but  what  these  are  we  do  not  as  yet  precisely 
know.  Had  I  time  to  enter  on  the  subject,  I 
could,  however,  show  you  a  certain  palseon- 
tological   appropriateness   in  them  which  we 

/are  beginning  to  perceive,  and,  further,  that 
they  imply  that  each  step  of  the  creative  work 

I  was  used  by  the  Creator  in  some  way  to 
further  each  new  advance.  In  the  mean  time 
we  may  regard  them  as  intimating  that  Moses 
does  not  himself  adhere  to  one  mode  of  creation 
for  all  animals  and  plants.  He  informs  us 
that  they  were  created  at  different  times, 
which  geology  has  since  amply  confirmed,  and 
he  intimates  also  that  there  were  different 
modes  of  operation  of  the  divine  power  in 
their  introduction,  a  fact  which  is  perhaps  less 
clear  to  us  because  as  yet  we  have  been 
struggling  to  prove  that  all  animals  were 
introduced  in  one  way  or  another  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  rest;  while  some  have  been 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  137 

striving  to  dispense  with  creation  altogether, 
and  some  to  reduce  God  to  an  arbitrary  mode 
of  working. 

Keeping  these  limitations  in  view,  we  come 
to  the  question :  —  What  evidence  have  we 
that  the  animals  now  on  the  earth,  or  any 
considerable  part  of  them,  have  been  derived 
from  preceding  creatures  of  different  species  ? 
The  direct  evidence  might  be  of  two  kinds. 
First,  we  might  be  able  to  show  that  species 
have  so  varied  as  to  pass  over  into  new  specific 
types.  Secondly,  we  might  be  able  to  show 
that  ancient  and  now  extinct  species  have 
given  birth  to  those  that  now  exist.  If  either 
of  these  two  things  could  be  proved,  we  should 
then  have  positive  evidence  of  derivation. 

The  first  kind  of  proof  has  been  attempted 
with  vast  industry  and  consummate  ability  by 
Darwin,  and  the  result  has  been  confessedly 
to  show  that,  on  this  line,  direct  evidence 
cannot  be  obtained.  In  some  species,  as  in 
the  pigeon  for  example,  marvellous  variability 
can  be  found  ;  but  then,  as  Darwin  himself 
has  shown,  all  these  extreme  varieties  are  still 
pigeons,  capable  of  breeding  into  each  other, 
and  even  of  returning,  by  cross-breeding,  into 
the  wild  stock  from  which  they  sprung.     While, 


138  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

therefore,  by  selection,  a  vast  range  of  variety 
can  be  secured,  it  seems  all  to  fall  within  the 
limits  of  the  species,  and  to  be  incapable  of 
breaking  down  the  barrier  between  any  given 
species  and  even  those  most  nearly  allied. 
This  Darwin  admits,  but  he  claims  that  he  has 
established  a  presumption  that,  longer  time 
and  greater  isolation  and  varieties  of  condition 
being  given,  the  specific  limits  might  be  over- 
stepped ;  but  this  is  all,  and  even  this  pre- 
sumption seems  to  become  less  tenable  as  the 
facts  are  more  carefully  studied.  He  has 
shown,  however,  that  we  should  be  more 
cautious  in  our  determinations  in  zoology, 
lest  we  confound  varieties  with  species. 

The  laws  referred  to  by  Darwin  as  con- 
cerned in  the  work  of  derivation  are  thus 
stated  by  Wallace,  in  a  summary  of  the  hy- 
pothesis maintained  by  the  former  :  — 

(1.)  The  law  of  multiplication  of  animals  in 
geometrical  proportion.  By  this  any  animal, 
if  unchecked,  would  soon  fill  the  world  with 
its  progeny.  The  checks  are  supplied  by  the 
destruction  of  germs  and  of  adults  by  enemies, 
by  limitation  of  geographical  range,  by  limita- 
tion to  particular  kinds  of  food,  and  by  other 
causes. 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  139 

(2.)  The  law  of  limited  population,  whereby 
the  habitable  area  afforded  by  the  earth  has 
always  been  stocked  with  inhabitants ;  so  that 
the  introduction  of  any  new  form  of  life  must 
involve  the  extinction  of  others,  and  the 
spread  of  any  one  beyond  its  former  limits 
must  involve  the  limitation  of  others,  while 
the  germs  produced  by  every  kind  of  animal 
and  plant  must,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases, 
fail  to  find  space  for  their  development.  Hence 
is  supposed  to  arise  a  constant  "  struggle  for 
existence." 

(3.)  The  law  of  heredity,  by  which  the  pro- 
geny of  all  animals  resemble  their  parents  in 
all  essential  points,  though  differing  in  indi- 
vidual details ;  and  whereby  also  individual 
peculiarities  acquired  by  the  parent  may  be 
transmitted  to  its  offspring. 

(4.)  The  law  of  variation,  by  which  such 
differences  under  the  influence  of  external 
conditions  accumulate  until  they  give  rise  to 
distinct  variations  in  form,  or  to  races,  as  we 
observe  to  be  the  case  in  so  marked  a  way 
in  our  domesticated  animals,  but  not  to  so 
great  an  extent  in  wild  animals.  This  is  one 
reason  why  we  can  domesticate  some  species 
and  not  others. 


140  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

(5.)  The  law  of  change  of  physical  condi- 
tions, whereby  certain  areas  of  the  surface  of 
the  earth  become  different  at  one  time  from 
what  they  were  at  another,  in  the  conditions 
necessary  to  life.  Thus  we  know  that  in  the 
Miocene  tertiary  period  the  climate  of  Green- 
land and  Spitzbergen  was  so  mild  that  plants 
like  those  of  the  Middle  States  could  flourish 
in  those  now  inhospitable  regions.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  the  Post-pliocene  time  an  Arctic 
climate  extended  further  south  than  at  pres- 
ent over  our  continents  and  seas.  We  know 
also  that  nearly  all  parts  of  our  continents 
have  been  many  times  submerged  for  long 
periods,  and  re-elevated  to  a  higher  position 
than  now. 

(6.)  The  law  of  the  equilibrium  of  nature, 
whereby  individual  varieties  and  species  well 
adapted  to  their  environment  flourish,  while 
those  less  perfectly  adapted  decay;  and  as, 
according  to  the  previous  laws,  the  conditions 
are  constantly  changing,  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence constantly  goes  on,  and  the  animals  being 
liable  to  vary  and  perpetuate  varieties,  there 
must  of  necessity  be  a  gradual  change  in  the 
animal  population  of  the  earth.  That  is,  those 
which  change  so  as  to  become  suitable  to  the 


Sivatherium  giganteum. — One  of  the  great  Bemoth  of  the  Miocene  Tertiary. 
Restored  from  bones  found  in  the  Sub-Himmalayan  deposits  of  India. 
By  Dr.  Murie,  F.G.S.     (From  the  London   Geological  Magazine). 

Nature  and  tha  Bible.  PLATE  VII.  p.  140. 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  141 

changed  conditions  live,  and  those  which  be- 
come unsuitable  die. 

Stated  in  this  way,  we  can  easily  see  that 
the  Darwinian  theory  has  a  very  plausible 
aspect,  and  it  is  to  this  that  Mill  refers  when 
he  says  that,  when  investigated  in  detail,  it  is 
not  so  absurd  as  it  appears  at  first  sight. 

You  will  observe,  however,  that  these  laws 
do  not  touch  the  actual  origin  of  living  things. 
They  presuppose  species  and  suitable  condi- 
tions of  life.  Further,  if  there  should  be  any 
way  in  which  new  species  may  be  introduced, 
then  these  laws  may  be  limited  in  their  appli- 
cation to  the  variation  of  species  within  certain 
limits,  and  to  their  extinction  when  the  condi- 
tions become  unfavorable  too  rapidly,  or  to  too 
great  an  extent.  The  main  conflict  between 
the  application  of  these  laws  and  the  Script- 
ure, is  when  they  are  applied  to  the  origin 
of  things,  or  when  they  are  employed  to  dis- 
pense with  the  action  of  the  divine  power,  by 
which,  on  the  theory  of  theism,  these  very 
arrangements  were  introduced  into  nature. 
They  further  come  into  conflict  with  revela- 
tion when  they  represent  man  with  all  his 
higher  powers  as  a  mere  outgrowth  of  the 
variation    of    brute    animals.     But   for   these 


142  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

applications  of  it,  the  Darwinian  hypothesis 
would  be  a  harmless  toy  for  philosophical 
biologists  to  play  with  until  they  can  obtain 
some  basis  of  fact  on  which  to  explain  the 
origin  of  species. 

These  unfair  applications  of  the  laws  of 
variation  are,  however,  constantly  made,  and 
are  paraded  by  a  host  of  litterateurs  and 
third-rate  scientific  men  as  if  they  were  suf- 
ficient to  explain  all  things,  and  to  relieve  us 
at  once  from  the  necessity  of  the  Scriptures 
and  of  God. 

The  second  line  of  argument,  that  derived 
from  palaeontology,  might  be  expected  to 
furnish  in  fossils  connecting  links  between 
extinct  and  recent  species.  On  the  contrary, 
however,  it  shows  a  marvellous  persistency  of 
species  through  vast  periods  of  geological 
time,  and  often  under  diverse  varietal  forms, 
passing  into  each  other;  but  each  species 
seems  to  come  in  without  progenitors,  and  to 
become  extinct  without  descendants.  It  is 
true  that  the  geological  record  is  very  imper- 
fect, and  that  connecting  links  may  be  lost ; 
but  the  want  of  them  in  the  vast  number  of 
cases  of  appearance  of  new  species,  and  this  in 
those  formations  in  wdiich  fossils  most  abound, 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  143 

takes  away  the  greater  part  of  the  force  of 
this  consideration.  Indeed,  as  new  species  of 
fossils  multiply,  and  new  facts  are  ascertained 
as  to  the  conditions  of  their  introduction  and 
disappearance,  the  gradually  diminishing  "  im- 
perfection of  the  record  "  becomes  less  and 
less  available  for  the  purposes  of  the  evolu- 
tionist. 

The  obvious  fact  that  there  has  been  a 
gradual  increase  in  variety  and  elevation  of 
living  beings,  from  the  earlier  periods  until 
now,  is  often  adduced  as  an  evidence  of  deri- 
vation, but  is  equally  explicable  on  the  sup- 
position of  a  creative  plan.  Nay,  more,  the 
pala3ontological  laws  which  have  been  estab- 
lished as  to  the  introduction  of  great  numbers 
of  allied  species  at  once,  and  in  many  places  at 
the  same  time ;  as  to  the  introduction  of  each 
great  type  in  high,  if  generalized,  forms,  and 
its  subsequent  degradation  in  relative  rank ; 
and  as  to  the  rapid  variation  of  each  new 
species,  so  as  to  adapt  itself  in  a  very  short 
time  to  all  conditions  open  to  it,  —  lean  decid- 
edly to  the  doctrine  of  creative  law  and  plan, 
rather  than  to  that  of  derivation.* 

*  These  laws  are  stated  and  discussed  in  a  popular  form  in  my 
"  Story  of  the  Earth."     See  also  Appendix  B. 


144  ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY 

The  nearest  approach  to  direct  palaeonto- 
logical  evidence  is  that  which  has  been  adduced 
by  Huxley  in  England,  and  Marsh  in  this 
country,  as  to  the  relations  of  the  modern 
and  tertiary  horses  to  some  similar  animals, 
their  predecessors  in  the  middle  and  early 
tertiary  periods.  This  shows  undoubtedly 
the  introduction  at  successive  periods,  between 
the  beginning  of  the  Eocene  tertiary  and  the 
modern,  of  animals  more  and  more  approxi- 
mating to  the  modern  horse.  But  none  of 
these  are  known  to  pass  into  each  other  by 
varietal  forms ;  and  the  supposition  that  they 
were  produced  by  a  passage  from  one  to  the 
other,  even  if  this  were  granted  as  possible, 
requires,  when  striving  to  realize  it,  such  a 
complicated  combination  of  changes  in  the 
animals  themselves  and  in  their  surroundings, 
that  it  becomes  simply  incredible,  except  on 
the  supposition  of  intentional  intervention. 

In  so  far,  then,  as  either  the  origin  of  species 
or  the  origin  of  man  is  concerned,  the  Dar- 
winian theory  is  not  entitled  to  rank  as  a 
result  of  scientific  induction.  It  rests  merely 
on  analogy,  and  on  its  power  to  explain  easily 
a  great  variety  of  phenomena,  provided  its 
premises  are  granted.     In  this  it  contrasts  in 


OF  ANIMAL  LIFE.  145 

a  scientific  point  of  view  unfavorably  with  the 
old  idea  of  creative  design,  which  undoubtedly 
rests  on  an  inductive  basis.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  we  may  be  satisfied  that  Scripture 
in  its  doctrine  as  to  the  origin  of  animals 
contradicts  no  received  result  of  science  and 
anticipates  many  of  its  discoveries,  though 
neither  Scripture  nor  science  as  yet  enables  us 
to  understand  the  precise  mode  in  which  new 
species  were  introduced.  I  would  that  I  had 
time  to  add  some  notices  of  the  many  beauti- 
ful references  to  the  animal  kingdom  in  the 
Scriptures.  Many  lectures  would  be  required 
to  illustrate  the  multitude  of  ways  in  which, 
with  inimitable  truth  and  beauty,  the  animal 
kingdom  is  made  to  teach  us  of  spiritual 
things,  and  to  illustrate  the  character  of  its 
Maker. 


10 


LECTURE   V. 

THE    ORIGIN    AND    EARLY    HISTORY    OF    MAN, 
ACCORDING   TO   SCIENCE   AND   THE   BIBLE. 


LECTUKE   V. 

THE    ORIGIN   AND  . EARLY    HISTORY    OF    MAN, 
ACCORDING   TO    SCIENCE   AND   THE   BIBLE. 


Testimony  of  Geology.  —  Antiquity  of  Man.  —  Re- 
lation of  Prehistoric  Man  to  Modern  Races.  — 
Comparisons  with  Birlical  History. 

~YX  7 HAT  is  sometimes  in  our  day  termed  the 
science  of  anthropology  is  a  strangely 
mixed  subject,  compounded  of  archaeology, 
physiology,  and  psychology,  and  touching  at 
almost  every  point  on  geology  and  sacred  his- 
tory, though  pursued  by  its  many  followers  in 
a  spirit  both  dashing  and  independent.  As  I 
may  take  it  for  granted  that  my  auditors  are 
well  acquainted  with  what  Scripture  teaches 
of  the  early  history  of  man,  I  may  on  this 
subject  proceed  at  once  to  notice  what  we 
learn  of  it  from  archaeology  and  geology. 

Testimony  of  Geology, 

We   have   already  seen  that  geology  pre- 
sents an  ascending  progression  of  life,  and  in 


150  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

passing  upward  in  the  scale  of  the  geological 
ages  we  are  for  a  long  series  of  these  ages 
like  travellers  exploring  some  desert  isle 
where  new  and  strange  animals  meet  us  at 
every  step,  but  where  we  see  no  trace  of  man. 
It  is  only  after  the  magnificent  culmination  of 
mammalian  life  in  the  middle  Tertiary  period, 
and  its  decadence  on  the  approach  of  the 
cold  of  the  Glacial  or  Pleistocene,  and  the 
renewal  of  the  world  in  the  Postglacial  or 
Modern  period,  that  we  can  look  for  man  with 
any  hope  of  success.  In  the  later  Miocene 
and  Pliocene  ages,  our  continents  had  attained 
to  their  full  development.  Under  the  mild 
climatic  conditions  of  these  times,  they  were 
clothed  with  a  luxuriant  flora,  and  the  num- 
bers and  wide  distribution  of  the  higher  and 
larger  forms  of  mammalian  life  were  greater 
and  more  complete  than  at  any  previous  or 
subsequent  period.  But  it  would  seem  that 
man  was  not  destined  to  appear  in  this  age  of 
the  world,  so  noble  in  all  other  respects. 

At  the  end  of  the  Pliocene  began  the  great 
age  of  arctic  cold,  the  so-called  Glacial  period. 
The  land  by  gradual  subsidence  began  to  lose 
its  fair  proportions,  the  seas  became  invaded 
by  northern  ice,  snows  began  to  settle  perma- 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  151 

neatly  on  the  hill-tops,  and  glaciers  to  plough 
their  way  toward  the  sea.  The  world,  after 
all  its  changes,  seemed  about  to  fall  into  ruin, 
and  multitudes  of  species  of  animals  and  plants 
either  perished  or  were  driven  to  those  south- 
ern portions  of  the  continents  which  still  re- 
mained habitable.  But  this  great  change  was 
only  a  long  winter,  during  which  the  plough- 
share of  God  was  to  prepare  the  world  for  a 
new  spring.  So  the  land  rose  again,  and  its 
warm  climate  was  partially  restored ;  great 
rains  and  melting  snows  remodelling  its  feat- 
ures of  valley  and  plain.  At  length  the  north- 
ern continents  became  even  more  extensive 
than  they  are  now.  England  and  Ireland,  for 
example,  were  joined  to  the  Continent  of 
Europe ;  and  a  great  but  nameless  river 
flowing  through  wide  plains  now  covered  by 
the  sea,  received  the  streams  of  Northern 
France,  England,  and  Germany.  The  Ameri- 
can land  also  stretched  farther  into  the 
Atlantic  than  it  does  at  the  present  day,  of 
which  remarkable  evidences  exist  in  the  sub- 
merged forests  under  the  waters  of  the  Bay  of 
Fundy  and  elsewhere  on  our  coasts. 

In  this,  the  Post-glacial  period  of  geology, 
the  land  again  became  tenanted  by  animals, 


152  THE  ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

some  of  them  survivors  of  the  Pliocene  age, 
some  of  them  new ;  and  it  is  to  this  time  that 
many  geological  facts  tend  to  assign  the  first 
appearance  of  man  in  Europe  and  Western 
Asia.  If  this  was  the  date  of  his  appearance, 
he  was  then  contemporary  with  many  great 
mammals  now  extinct,  or  which  have  become 
much  limited  in  geographical  range.  Accord- 
ing to  Pictet,  ninety-eight  mammals  are  known 
by  their  remains  to  have  inhabited  Europe  at 
this  time.  Of  these,  fifty-seven  still  survive, 
and  no  new  ones  have  been  added  except  man, 
the  sheep,  the  dog,  and  a  few  others  which 
may  have  come  in  with  man.  In  Britain, 
Dawkins  estimates  fifty-three  species  in  all  of 
Post-glacial  mammals.  Of  these,  twelve  are 
survivors  of  the  Pliocene,  forty-one  are  new, 
twenty-eight  survive  as  modern  inhabitants  of 
Britain,  fourteen  have  become  wholly  extinct, 
eleven  are  locally  extinct  or  are  now  known 
only  in  other  parts  of  the  world.* 

Of  the  wholly  extinct  species  are  Elephas 
primigenius,  the  mammoth ;  Rhinoceros  ticho- 
rhinus,  the  woolly  rhinoceros ;  Ursus  spe~ 
laws,  the  cave  bear,  &c.  Of  the  locally 
extinct   species    are   the    reindeer,   the  musk 

*  Memoirs  of  Palaeontographical  Society.     See  Appendix  C. 


Extinct  Animals  supposed  to  have  been  contemporary  icith  Palaeocosmic  Man. — 
The  Mammoth,  Tichorhine  Rhinoceros,  Extinct  Hippopotamus,  Machairo- 
dus  and  Long-fronted  Ox.  The  animals  reduced  from  a  Picture  by 
Waterhouse  Hawkins. 


Nature  and  the  Bible. 


PLATE  VIII. 


p.  152. 


p 


•i.-U/^ 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  153 

sheep,  the  long-fronted  ox,  the  lion,  the  cape 
hyena,  &c. :  a  strange  union  of  species  now 
widely  separated  geographically ;  but  indicat- 
ing a  wooded  country  with  a  somewhat  equa- 
ble climate,  though  perhaps  a  low  mean 
temperature. 

It  would  thus  seem  that  man  entered  Europe 
at  a  time  when  its  mammalian  fauna  was 
richer  than  now,  and  when  it  was  a  densely 
wooded  region,  into  which  he  straggled  from 
his  Edenic  centre  of  creation,  with  a  few  of 
the  animals  connected  with  him  there.  If  so, 
he  was  not  destined  to  remain  long  undis- 
turbed, for  another  great  subsidence  seems  to 
have  occurred,  connected  apparently  with  the 
extinction  from  Europe  of  many  kinds  of  ani- 
mals, and  closing  the  time  of  what  may  be 
called  Palaeocosmic,  or,  if  we  take  a  Biblical 
mode  of  expression,  antediluvian  man,  and 
reducing  eventually  the  European  land  to  its 
present  proportions,  and  introducing  a  new 
race  allied  to  the  Basques  and  Lapps,  who 
may  be  named  the,  Neocosmic  peoples,  to 
be  followed  by  the  Celts  and  Teutons,  and 
other  historic  nations.  To  this  Neocosmic  age 
belong  the  remains  found  in  the  Swiss  lake 
habitations  and  the  shell-heaps  of  Denmark. 


154  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

I  have  rapidly  summed  up  the  results  of 
recent  geological  researches  on  this  subject, 
the  details  of  which  may  be  found  in  many 
popular  works,  as  for  example  in  Sir  Charles 
LyelTs  "Antiquity  of  Man."  It  is  to  be  ob- 
served, however,  that  no  geological  researches 
are  accompanied  with  greater  difficulties  than 
those  that  relate  to  the  period  immediately 
preceding  the  advent  of  man,  and  that  in  the 
above  statements  I  have  been  obliged  to  speak 
in  very  general  terms  to  avoid  trenching  on 
disputed  ground.  It  is  farther  to  be  observed 
that  it  is  only  in  Europe  and  Eastern  America 
that  even  tolerable  certainty  has  been  attained 
respecting  the  geology  of  the  Post-glacial  and 
early  Modern  periods,  and  neither  of  these 
regions  can  be  affirmed  either  on  historical  or 
geological  grounds  to  have  been  the  most 
primitive  abodes  of  man. 

European  antiquaries  have  called  the  most 
ancient  of  the  races  known  in  that  part  of 
the  world  Paleolithic  men,  and  the  more 
modern  Neolithic,  under  the  impression  that 
the  earlier  race  used  only  rudely  formed 
instruments  of  stone,  while  the  later  could 
fashion  better  stone  implements ;  but  Ameri- 
can analogies  and  many  European  facts  teach 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  V,h 

us    that   these   indications   from   implements 
may  be  very  fallacious.     The  ruder  American 
tribes,  as   well   as    those    in   a   semi-civilized 
condition,  used  at   one    and    the    same    time 
implements  roughly  chipped  and  highly  pol- 
ished, the  difference  depending  on  the  material 
employed  and  the  uses  for  which  the  weapons 
or  implements  were  intended;  and  it  is  well 
known  that  contiguous  tribes  differed  in  their 
expertness   in   the   manufacture,  and   in   the 
methods  and  materials  they  employed.     This 
was  no  doubt  also  the  case  with  prehistoric 
men  in   Europe.     Further,  in    some  districts 
and  for  some  purposes,  very  rude  stone  im- 
plements were  used  up  to  a  late  time,  long 
after    the    abundant   introduction    of    metals. 
Little  chronological  value  is   thus  to  be   at- 
tached to  this  distinction,  and  the  terms  them- 
selves are   therefore   objectionable ;    while  it 
is  evident  that  they  cannot  even  locally  be 
absolutely  maintained,  since    highly  polished 
bone  implements  and  even  pottery  are  found 
in  repositories  classed  as   of   Paleolithic  age. 
It  is  for  these  reasons  that  T  have  suggested 
the  terms  Palceocosmic  and  Neocosmic,  and  I 
would  hold  as  of  the  first  age  such  men  as  can 
be  proved  to  have  lived  in  the  time  of  greatest 


156  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

elevation  of  the  European  land  in  the  Post- 
glacial period,  and  as  of  the  second  those  who 
came  in  as  their  successors  in  the  Modern 
period.  The  earlier  or  Paloeocosrnic  age  has 
also  been  termed  the  Mammoth  age,  because 
that  great  elephantine  animal  is  believed  to 
have  still  survived;  and  the  later  Stone  age  or 
the  Neocosmic  has,  in  its  earlier  part  at  least, 
received  the  name  of  the  Reindeer  age,  because 
of  the  abundance  of  remains  of  this  animal 
found  in  deposits  of  the  time. 

Both  the  PalaBocosmic  and  Neocosmic  men 
belong  to  the  "  Stone  age,"  which  continued 
to  prevail  in  Europe  from  a  period  of  unknown 
antiquity,  until  the  introduction  of  bronze, 
that  useful  and  beautiful  alloy  of  copper  and 
tin,  as  a  material  for  weapons,  tools,  and 
ornaments.  This  "  Bronze  age  "  undoubtedly 
began  to  replace  that  of  stone  when  the 
discovery  of  the  tin  deposits  of  Cornwall 
enabled  the  Carthaginians  for  the  first  time 
to  manufacture  cheap  bronze,  and  to  supply 
it  to  the  tribes  with  which  they  carried  on 
trade  ;  and  in  still  more  recent  times  iron 
superseded  bronze. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  evidence  of  the 
distinction  between  the  earlier  and  later  Stone 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  157 

age,  as  represented  by  the  terms  Palaaocosmic 
and  Neocosmic,  I  may  refer  to  the  caves  near 
Liege,  in  Belgium,  explored  by  Schmerling, 
Dupont,  and  others.  Some  of  these  have  a 
lower  stratum  of  mud  or  gravel,  containing 
bones  of  the  mammoth  and  other  extinct 
animals,  mixed  with  human  bones  belonging; 
to  a  large  and  well-developed  race  of  men. 
Over  this  are,  in  some  cases,  to  be  found 
interments  of  a  smaller  race,  like  the  modern 
Laplanders,  who  seem  to  have  succeeded  the 
first  race,  and  with  whom  are  remains  indi- 
cating that  the  animals  of  Europe  were  similar 
to  those  now  living  there,  except  that  some 
species,  as  the  reindeer,  now  locally  extinct, 
were  present.  This  second  race  is  by  some 
held  to  be  Palaeolithic,  and  it  certainly  pre- 
ceded the  more  modern  Celtic  and  Germanic 
races,  but  it  came  in  after  the  mammoth  and 
other  great  Post-glacial  mammals  had  become 
extinct,  and  after  the  European  land  had  been 
settled  at  its  present  level.  It  is  therefore'  in 
our  view  Neocosmic,  whereas  the  older  race, 
supposed  to  be  contemporary  with  the  mam- 
moth, can  alone  claim  to  be  Palceocosmic.  I 
confess  that  the  evidence  stated  by  Dupont,  in 
his  work  on  the  Belgian  caves,  is  that  which 


158  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

to  me  most  clearly  establishes  a  geological 
probability  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  man 
in  the  Post-glacial  or  Mammoth  age  ;  and  this 
evidence  is  corroborated  by  so  many  other 
facts  that  I  think  it  must,  for  the  present  at 
least,  be  accepted.  The  conclusions  which  it 
seems  to  prove  may  be  stated  thus.  At  some 
unknown  period,  before  the  occupation  of 
Western  Europe  by  the  modern  historic  races, 
it  was  occupied  by  a  race  of  men  of  small 
stature,  brachy  cephalic,  or  with  short  heads 
and  with  Turanian  *  features,  allied  in  physical 
characters  to  the  modern  Lapps,  and  using 
implements  similar  to  those  of  the  modern 
Esquimaux.  In  their  time  Europe  was  oc- 
cupied by  its  present  fauna,  but  was  sufficiently 
cool,  or  sufficiently  densely  wooded,  to  enable 
the  reindeer  to  exist  abundantly  in  France. 
At  a  still  earlier  time  this  race  of  the  Reindeer 
age  was  preceded  by  another  race  not  dis- 
similar in  its.  modes  of  life  and  implements 
and  weapons,  and  of  Turanian  t}^pe,  but  of 
large  stature  and  great  bodily  power,  and 
dolichocephalic,  or  with  long  heads.     In  their 

*  The  term  Turanian  is  used  as  representing  the  Mongolian  and 
American  races,  which  resemhle  each  other  in  physical  characters 
and  language,  and  which  are  also  the  most  akin,  in  the  characters  of 
the  skeleton  at  least,  to  the  oldest  European  races. 


HISTORY  OF  MAX.  159 

time  the  European  land  was  more  extensive 
than  at  present,  and  the  mammoth  and  its 
contemporaries  still  existed.  This  race  and 
many  species  of  large  mammalia  had  disap- 
peared from  Europe  before  the  advent  of  the 
first-mentioned  race.  These  larffe  men  of  the 
Mammoth  age  are,  then,  the  true  Palasocosmic 
meiij  and  the  oldest  race  of  men  of  whom  we 


have  any  geological  information.* 

Antiquity  of  Man. 

We  may  in  this  investigation  limit  ourselves 
to  the  consideration  of  the  earliest  or  Palteocos- 
mic  men ;  and  the  two  main  points  with  refer- 
ence to  them,  embraced  in  our  present  subject, 
are  their  antiquity  and  their  relation  to  modern 
races  of  men.  With  respect  to  the  first  point, 
we  shall  find  that  little  certainty  as  to  their 
absolute  date  can  be  attained,  except  that  they 
are  geologically  very  modern  and  historically 
very  ancient-  and  with  respect  to  the  second, 
that  they  are  closely  allied  to  that  race  of 
men  which  in  historic  times  has  been  the  most 
widely  spread  of  any.  As  these  men  are  pre- 
historic, we  can  have,  with  respect  to  their 
antiquity,  only  geological  evidence,  and  this 

*  See  Appendix  C. 


160  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

resolves  itself  into  the  calculation  of  the  rate 
of  erosion  of  river  valleys,  of  deposition  of 
gravels  and  cave-earths,  and  of  formation  of 
stalagmite  crusts,  all  of  which  are  so  variable 
and  uncertain  that,  though  it  may  be  said  that 
an  impression  of  great  antiquity  beyond  the 
time  of  received  history  has  been  left  on  the 
minds  of  geologists,  no  absolute  antiquity  has 
been  proved ;  and  while  some,  on  such  evi- 
dence, would  stretch  the  antiquity  of  man  to 
even  half  a  million  of  years,  the  oldest  of  these 
remains  may,  after  all,  not  exceed  our  tradi- 
tional six  thousand.  With  reference  for  ex- 
ample to  the  erosion  of  river  valleys  in  Western 
Europe,  it  can  be  shown  that  this  probably 
belongs  to  a  much  earlier  period  than  that  of 
man,  and  that  old  valleys  filled  with  debris 
during  the  Glacial  period  could  be  scoured  out 
in  no  great  lapse  of  time,  especially  if  the  early 
Modern  period  was,  as  some  suppose,  a  time 
of  excessive  rainfall.  With  reference  to  the 
growth  of  stalagmite  in  caves,  recent  observa- 
tions show  that  tliis  may  be  much  more  rapid 
than  has  been  supposed,  and  that  its  rate  now 
is  no  measure  for  that  which  may  have  pre- 
vailed at  an  earlier  period  and  in  a  forest-clad 
region.     With  reference  to  the  elevations  and 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  161 

subsidences  which  have  occurred,  we  have  no 
measure  of  time  to  apply  to  them;  and  the 
question  is  not  yet  settled  whether  they  were 
of  a  slow  and  gradual  nature  like  some  now  in 
progress,  or  whether,  like  others  that  have 
occurred  in  connection  with  earthquakes,  they 
may  have  been  rapid  and  cataclysmal. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  turn  to  the  evidence 
afforded  by  the  extinction  of  animals,  we  know 
that  the  reindeer  and  the  aurochs  existed  in 
Europe  up  to  the  time  of  the  Romans,  and  the 
great  Irish  deer  up  to  the  time  of  modern  peat 
bogs.  And  we  have  no  good  evidence  that 
the  mammoth  and  cave  bear  and  woolly  rhino- 
ceros may  not  have  lived  up  to  the  time  when 
men  of  the  Biblical  antediluvian  period  first 
migrated  into  Europe.  Nor  have  we  any 
goad  evidence  as  yet  as  to  whether  their  ex- 
tinction was  gradual  or  comparatively  sudden, 
or  whether  man  himself  jnay  not  have  had 
some  connection  with  their  disappearance. 

One  fact  adverse  to  the  high  antiquity  which 
has  been  demanded  for  European  man  is  the 
small  number  of  individual  skeletons  found  in 
Europe,  compared  with  those  of  contemporary 
animals,  which  either  implies  a  short  time  of 
residence  or  an  extremely  sparse  population. 

11 


162  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

It  is  remarkable  in  this  connection  that  nearly 
all  the  remains  referred  to  Palseocosmic  men 
have  been  found  in  caves,  and  many  of  them  in 
circumstances  which  imply  interment.  What 
has  become  of  the  other  cemeteries  of  these 
men,  if  they  had  such  ?  The  question  espe- 
cially strikes  us  in  America,  where  even  nations 
not  very  populous  have  left  extensive  ossuaries 
and  burial  mounds.  Were  their  tombs  swept 
away  or  buried  by  a  diluvial  cataclysm  ?  Did 
these  ancient  peoples,  like  some  American  and 
Australian  tribes,  place  their  dead  on  wooden 
stages,  and  were  the  cave  burials  exceptional ; 
or  were  there,  after  all,  only  a  few  very  small 
tribes  in  Europe  in  Palasocosmic  times,  and  was 
their  duration  only  brief  ? 

As  I  have  referred  to  America,  I  may  state 
here  that  the  actual  American  race,  though 
nearly  allied  in  form  and  feature  to  Palo3ocosmic 
men,  can  make  no  pretension  to  great  anti- 
quity. Even  its  oldest  remains,  those  of  the 
mound-builders  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi, 
though  historically  ancient,  are  on  the  modern 
alluvia  of  the  rivers,  and  can  claim  no  geologi- 
cal antiquity.  Their  languages,  customs,  and 
religions  are  allied  to  those  of  post-diluvian 
nations  of  the  Old  World  ;  and,  though  they 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  „         1G3 

indicate  migrations  at  a  time  when  the  Tura- 
nian race  was  still  dominant  there,  go  no  farther 
back  than  this.  Further,  those  skulls  and 
other  remains  for  which  a  higher  antiquity 
has  been  claimed  are  identical  with  those  of 
the  modern  races  ;  and  I  agree  with  my  friend 
Dr.  Newberry,  and  other  good  geologists,  that 
no  valid  geological  evidence  of  the  great  age 
assigned  to  some  of  them  by  their  discoverers 
has  yet  been  adduced. 

Comparisons  ivith  Modern  Races. 

When  we  come  to  the  second  question,  that 
of  their  relations  to  modern  men,  we  find  no 
reason  to  refer  Palseocosmic  men  to  a  low 
type ;  and  we  have,  fortunately,  now  obtained 
good  material  for  comparison,  in  so  far  as 
skulls  and  skeletons  are  concerned.  More 
especially  the  skull  found  in  the  cave  at  Engis 
in  Belgium,  those  of  Cro-magnon  and  other 
caverns  in  France,  so  well  described  in  the 
"  Reliquia?  Aquitanicce  "  of  Lartet  and  Christy, 
and  more  recently  those  found  in  the  caves  of 
Mentone,  leave  little  to  be  desired  in  this  re- 
spect. 

The  skeleton  found  by  Dr.  Riviere  in  the 
cave  of  Mentone  in  Southern  France,  and  now 


164         _     THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

n 

well  known  by  means  of  his  excellent  descrip- 
tions and  photographs,  is  that  of  a  man  of  large 
stature  and  great  muscular  power,  with  no 
simian  characters,  and  with  a  countenance 
Mongolian  or  Turanian  in  type,  but  in  every 
respect  entirely  human,  while  the  brain  was 
of  large  dimensions.  The  man  had  been 
buried  clad  in  a  robe  of  skins,  with  a  head- 
dress ornamented  with  shells  and  teeth  of 
deer.  A  bone  bodkin  and  flint  implements 
were  found  near  him,  and  a  quantity  of  red 
oxide  of  iron,  no  doubt  his  "war  paint."  Dr. 
Riviere  considers  it  certain  from  the  remains 
found  in  the  debris  overlying  this  skeleton 
that  it  belongs  to  a  man  of  the  Mammoth  age, 
a  truly  Palseocosmic  man.  It  is  also  certain 
that  he  was  interred :  and  the  whole  of  the 
circumstances  point  to  a  somewhat  rucle  state 
of  society,  corresponding  perhaps  to  that  of 
the  hunter  tribes  of  America ;  but  to  a  physi- 
cally high  development  of  the  human  type, 
and  to  a  volume  of  brain  not  inferior  to  that 
of  the  modern  European. 

I  may  be  pardoned  for  giving  a  little  more 
in  detail  the  facts  derived  from  the  remark- 
able skeletons  of  Cro-magnon,  which  may  be 
in  part  illustrated  by  the  outlines  of  skulls  in 
Plate  IX. 


Outlines  of  three  European  Palseocosmic  Skulls. — Outer  outline,  Cro-magnon 
Skull ;  Second  outline,  Engis  Skull ;  Third  Outline  (dotted)  Neanderthal 
Skull.  Inner  Figure,  an  ancient  American  Skull,  from  the  site  of  Hoche- 
laga,  on  a  smaller  scale,  for  comparison. 


Nature  and  the  Bible. 


PLATE  IX. 


p.  164. 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  165 

The  beautiful  work  of  Lartet  and  Christy 
has  vividly  portrayed  to  us  the  antiquities  of 
the  limestone  plateau  of  the  Dordogne,  the 
ancient  Aquitania,  —  remains  which  recall  to 
us  a  population  of  Horites,  or  cave-dwellers, 
of  a  time  anterior  to  the  dawn  of  history  in 
France,  living  much  like  the  modern  hunter 
tribes  of  America,  and,  as  already  stated,  pos- 
sibly contemporary,  in  their  early  history  at 
least,    with    the    mammoth    and    its    extinct 
companions  of  the  later  Pleistocene  forests. 
What  manner  of  people  were  these  oldest  of 
Europeans?      The   answer   is   given   by   the 
skeletons  found  in  the  cave  of  Cro-magnon. 
This  is  a  shelter  or  hollow  under  an  over- 
hanging  ledge    of   limestone,  and    excavated 
originally  by  the  action  of  the  weather  on  a 
softer  bed.     It  fronts  the  south-west  and  the 
little  river  Vezere  ;  and,  having  originally  been 
about  eight  feet  high  and  nearly  twenty  deep, 
must  have  formed  a  cosy  shelter  from  rain,  or 
cold,  or  summer  sun,  and  with  a  pleasant  out- 
look from  its  front.     All  rude  races  have  much 
sagacity   in   making   selections   of   this   sort. 
Being  nearly  fifty  feet  wide,  it  was  capacious 
enough  to  accommodate  several  families,  and 
when  in  use  it  no  doubt  had  trees  or  shrubs 


166  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

in  front,  and  may  have  been  farther  completed 
by  stones,  poles,  or  bark  placed  across  the 
opening.  It  seems,  however,  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  have  been  used  only  at  intervals, 
and  to  have  been  left  vacant  for  considerable 
portions  of  time.  Perhaps  it  was  visited  only 
by  hunting  or  war  parties.  But  subsequently 
it  wras  permanently  occupied ;  and  this  for  so 
long  a  time  that  in  some  places  a  foot  and  a 
half  of  ashes  and  carbonaceous  matter  with 
bones,  implements,  &c,  was  accumulated.  By 
this  time  -the  height  of  the  cavern  had  been 
much  diminished,  and  instead  of  clearing  it 
out  for  future  nse  it  was  made  a  place  of  burial 
in  which  four  or  fiye  individuals  were  interred. 
Of  these,  two  were  men,  —  one  of  great  age, 
the  other  probably  in  the  prime  of  life.  A  third 
was  a  woman  of  about  thirty  or  forty  years  of 
age.  The  other  remains  were  too  fragmen- 
tary to  give  very  certain  results. 

These  bones  unquestionably  belong  to  the 
oldest  race  of  men  known  in  wTestern  Europe. 
They  have  been  most  carefully  examined  by 
several  competent  anatomists  and  archaeolo- 
gists, and  the  results  have  been  published  with 
excellent  figures  in  the  "  Keliquise  Aquitanica3." 
They  are,  therefore,  of  the  utmost  interest  for 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  167 

our  present  purpose  ;  and  I  shall  try  so  to 
clivest  the  descriptions  of  anatomical  details 
as  to  give  a  clear  notion  of  their  character. 
The  "  Old  Man  of  Cro-magnon  "  was  of  great 
stature,  being  nearly  six  feet  high.  More 
than  this,  his  bones  show  that  he  was  of  the 
strongest  and  most  athletic  muscular  develop- 
ment, —  a  Samson  in  strength :  and  the  bones 
of  the  limbs  have  the  peculiar  form  which  is 
characteristic  of  athletic  men  habituated  to 
rough  walking,  climbing,  and  running ;  for 
this  is,  I  believe,  the  real  meaning  of  the  enor- 
mous strength  of  the  thigh-bone,  and  the  flat- 
tened condition  of  the  leg  in  this  and  other 
old  skeletons.  It  occurs  to  some  extent, 
though  much  less  than  in  this  old  man,  in 
American  skeletons.  His  skull  presents  all 
the  characters  of  advanced  age,  though  the 
teeth  had  been  worn  down  to  the  sockets 
without  being  lost,  which  again  is  the  charac- 
ter of  some,  though  not  of  all,  aged  Indian 
skulls.  The  skull  proper,  or  brain-case,  is 
very  long,  more  so  than  in  ordinary  modern 
skulls,  and  this  length  is  accompanied  with  a 
great  breadth,  so  that  the  brain  was  of  greater 
size  than  in  average  modern  men  ;  and  the 
frontal  region  was  largely  and  well  developed. 


168  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

Its  length  is  stated  at  7.9  inches,  its  height 
5.1  inch,  and  its  breadth  5.8  inches,  while 
its  capacity  is  no  less  than  97  cubic  inches. 
In  this  respect  this  most  ancient  skull  fails 
utterly  to  vindicate  the  expectations  of  those 
who  would  regard  prehistoric  men  as  approach- 
ing to  the  apes.  It  is  at  the  opposite  extreme. 
The  face,  however,  presented  very  peculiar 
characters.  It  was  extremely  broad,  with 
projecting  cheek-bones  and  heavy  jaw,  in 
this  resembling  the  coarse  types  of  the  Amer- 
ican face ;  and  the  eye-orbits  were  square,  and 
elongated  laterally.  The  nose  was  large  and 
prominent,  and  the  jaws  projected  somewhat 
forward.  This  man,  therefore,  had,  as  to  his 
features,  some  resemblance  to  the  harsher 
type  of  American  physiognomy,  with  over- 
hanging brows,  small  and  transverse  eyes, 
high  cheek-bones,  and  coarse  mouth.  He 
had  not  lived  to  so  great  an  age  without  some 
rubs,  for  his  thigh-bone  showed  a  depression 
which  must  have  resulted  from  a  severe 
wound,  perhaps  from  the  horn  of  some  wild 
animal,  or  the  spear  of  an  enemy. 

The  woman  presented  similar  characters  of 
stature  and  cranial  form,  modified  by  her  sex, 
and  must  have  been  in  form  and  visage  a  veri- 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  169 

table  squaw,  who,  if  her  hair  and  complexion 
were  suitable,  would  have  passed  at  once  for 
an  Indian  woman,  but  one  of  unusual  size  and 
development.  Her  head  bears  sad  testimony 
to  the  violence  of  her  age  and  people.  She 
died  from  the  effects  of  a  blow  from  a  stone- 
headed  pogamogan  or  spear,  which  has  pene- 
trated the  right  side  of  the  forehead  with  so 
clean  a  fracture  as  to  indicate  the  extreme 
rapidity  and  force  of  its  blow.  It  is  inferred 
from  tfhe  condition  of  the  edges  of  this  wound 
that  she  may  have  survived  its  infliction  for 
two  weeks  or  more.  If,  as  is  most  likely,  the 
wound  was  received  in  some  sudden  attack  by 
a  hostile  tribe,  they  must  have  been  driven  off 
or  have  retired,  leaving  the  wounded  woman 
in  the  hands  of  her  friends  to  be  tended  for  a 
time,  and  then  buried,  either  with  other  mem- 
bers of  her  family  or  with  others  who  had 
perished  in  the  same  skirmish.  Unless  the 
wound  was  inflicted  in  sleep,  during  a  night 
attack,  she  must  have  fallen,  not  in  flight,  but 
with  her  face  to  the  foe,  perhaps  aiding  the 
resistance  of  her  friends,  or  shielding  her  little 
ones  from  destruction.  With  the  people  of 
Cro-magnon,  as  with  the  American  Indians, 
the  care  of  the  wounded  was  probably  a  sacred 


170  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

duty,  not  to  be  neglected  without  incurring 
the  greatest  disgrace  and  the  vengeance  of  the 
guardian  spirits  of  the  sufferers. 

While  the  skeletons  of  Cro-magnon  corre- 
spond to  that  of  Mentone  in  type,  they  corre- 
spond also  in  indications  of  the  habits  of  the  race. 
The  ornaments  found  at  Cro-magnon  were 
perforated  shells  from  the  Atlantic,  and  pieces 
of  ivory.  Those  at  Mentone  were  perforated 
NeritinaB  from  the  Mediterranean,  and  canine 
teeth  of  the  deer.  In  both  cases  there  was 
evidence  that  these  ancient  people  painted 
themselves  with  red  oxide  of  iron ;  and,  as  if 
to  complete  the  similarity,  the  Mentone  man 
had  an  old  healed-up  fracture  of  the  radius  of 
the  left  arm,  the  effect  of  a  violent  blow  or 
of  a  fall.  In  the  cave  of  La  Madelaine,  which 
was  probably  inhabited  by  the  same  race,  was 
found  a  plate  of  ivory  having  a  rude  likeness 
of  the  mammoth  carved  on  it,  —  probably  some 
family  or  tribal  "  totem "  of  the  period. 
(Plate  X.)  Skulls  found  at  Clichy  and  Gre- 
nelle  in  1868  and  1869  are  described  by  Pro- 
fessor Broca  and  Mr.  Fleurens  as  of  the  same 
general  type,  and  remains  found  at  Gibral- 
tar and  in  the  cave  of  Paviland,  in  England, 
seem  also  to  have  belonged  to  the  same  race. 


3      ~ 


O  5 

&    5 


g-    R 

El  2  a. 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  171 

The  celebrated  Engis  skull,  believed  to  have 
belonged  to  a  contemporary  of  the  mammoth, 
is  also  precisely  of  the  same  type,  though  less 
massive  than  that  of  Cro-magnon ;  and,  lastly, 
even  the  somewhat  degraded  Neanderthal 
skull,  found  in  a  cave  near  Dusseldorf,  though, 
like  that  of  Clichy,  inferior  in  frontal  develop- 
ment, is  referable  to  the  same  peculiar  long- 
headed style  of  man,  in  so  far  as  can  be  judged 
from  the  portion  that  remains. 

Let  it  be  observed,  then,  that  these  skulls 
are  probably  the  oldest  known  in  the  world, 
and  they  are  all  referable  to  one  race  of  men  ; 
and  let  us  ask  what  they  tell  as  to  the  position 
and  character  of  Palseocosmic  man.  The  testi- 
mony is  here  fortunately  well-nigh  unanimous. 
Huxley  —  who  well  compares  some  of  the 
peculiar  features  of  these  ancient  skulls  and 
skeletons  to  those  of  Australians  and  other 
rude  tribes,  and  of  the  ancient  Danes  of  Bor- 
roby,  a  people  not  improbably  allied  to  the 
Esthonians  and  Finns  —  remarks  that  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  individual  heads  of  the  moi 
homogeneous  rude  races  differ  from  each  other 
"  in  the  same  characters,  though  perhaps  not 
to  the  same  extent,  with  the  Engis  and  Nean- 
derthal skulls,  seems  to  me  to  prohibit  any 


172  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

cautious  reasoner  from  affirmiug  the  latter  to 
have  necessarily  been  of  distinct  races."  My 
own  experience  in  American  skulls,  and  the 
still  larger  experience  of  Dr.  Wilson,  fully 
confirm  the  wisdom  of  this  caution.  yHe 
adds  :  "  Finally,  the  comparatively  large  cra- 
nial capacity  of  the  Neanderthal  skull,  over- 
laid though  it  may  be  by  pithecoid  bony 
walls,  and  the  completely  human  proportions 
of  the  accompanying  limb-bones,  together 
with  the  very  fair  development  of  the  Engis 
skull,  clearly  indicate  that  the  first  traces  of 
the  primordial  stock  whence  man  has  been 
derived  need  no  longer  be  sought  by  those 
who  entertain  any  form  of  the  doctrine  of 
progressive  development  in  the  neAvest  ter- 
tiaries,  but  that  they  may  be  looked  for  in  an 
epoch  more  distant  from  that  of  the  FAephas 
primigenius  than  that  Ls  from  us."  If  he  had 
possessed  the  Cro-magnon  and  Mentone  skulls 
at  the  time  when  this  was  written,  he  might 
well  have  said  immeasurably  distant  from  the 
time  of  the  Elcphas  primigenius.  Professor 
Broca,  who  seems  by  no  means  disinclined  to 
favor  a  simian  origin  for  men,  has  the  following 
general  conclusions,  which  refer  to  the  Cro- 
magnon   skulls :    "  The    great  volume  of  the 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  173 

brain,  the  development  of  the  frontal  region, 
the  fine  elliptical  profile  of  the  anterior  portion 
of  the  skull,  and  the  orthognathous  form  of 
the  upper  facial  region,  are  incontestable 
evidences  of  superiority  which  are  met  with 
usually  only  in  the  civilized  races.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  great  breadth  of  face,  the 
alveolar  prognathism,  the  enormous  develop- 
ment of  the  ascending  ramus  of  the  lower 
jaw,  the  extent  and  roughness  of  the  muscular 
insertions,  especially  of  the  masticatory  muscles, 
give  rise  to  the  idea  of  a  violent  and  brutal 
race." 

He  adds  that  this  apparent  antithesis,  seen 
also  in  the  limbs  as  well  as  the  skull,  accords 
with  the  evidence  furnished  by  the  associated 
weapons  and  implements,  of  a  rude  hunter 
life,  and  at  the  same  time  of  no  mean  degree 
of  taste  and  skill  in  carving  and  other  arts. 
He  might  have  added  that  this  is  precisely 
the  antithesis  seen  in  the  American  tribes, 
among  whom  art  and  taste  of  various  kinds, 
and  much  that  is  high  and  spiritual  even  in 
thought,  co-existed  with  barbarous  modes  of 
life  and  intense  ferocity  and  cruelty.  The 
god  and  the  demon  may  have  been  combined 
in  these  races,  but  there  was  nothing  of  the 
mere  brute. 


174  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

These  Palgeocosmic  skeletons  are,  it  is  true, 
but  dry  bones ;  but  by  careful  observation  a 
strange  and  interesting  history  can  be  learned 
from  them.  They  all  represent  a  race  of  grand 
physical  development,  and  of  cranial  capacity 
equal  to  that  of  the  average  modern  European ; 
while  the  implements  found  with  some  of  them 
show  a  state  of  the  arts  similar  to  that  of 
the  ruder  tribes  of  American  Indians,  and  simi- 
lar customs  of  burial,  and  probably  a  similar 
system  of  tribal  and  family  totems,  and  of 
worship  of  Manitous  or  subordinate  divinities. 
They  are  thus  not  merely  men,  but  men  cor- 
responding to  the  Turanian  and  American 
type,  one  of  the  most  widely  spread  and 
ancient  of  the  races  still  existing.  If  ante- 
diluvian men,  they  thus  show  that  these  did 
not  differ  even  varie  tally  from  Modern  men, 
though  of  greater  than  average  physical  power, 
a  property  quite  consistent  with  their  existence 
in  the  dawn  of  the  human  period,  and  at  a 
time  when  man  inhabited  larger  continents 
than  at  present,  and  had  to  contend  with 
more  formidable  animals.  If  their  antiquity 
be  conceded,  they  really  take  away  all  sem- 
blance of  probability  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
origin  of  man  by  derivation.     They  tell   us 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  175 

that  primitive  man  had  the  same  high  cerebral 
organization  which  he  -possesses  now,  and  we 
may  infer  the  same  high  intellectual  and  moral 
nature,  fitting  him  for  communion  with  God 
and  headship  over  the  lower  world.  They 
indicate  also,  like  the  mound-builders  who 
preceded  the  North  American  Indian,  that 
man's  earlier  state  was  ,the  best,  that  he  had 
been  a  high  and  noble  creature  before  he 
became  a  savage.  It  is  not  conceivable  that 
their  great  development  of  brain  and  mind 
could  have  spontaneously  engrafted  itself  on  a 
mere  brutal  and  savage  life.  These  gifts  must 
be  remnants  of  a  noble  organization  degraded 
by  moral  evil.  They  thus  justify  the  tradition 
of  a  golden  and  Edenic  age,  and  mutely  protest 
against  the  philosophy  of  progressive  develop- 
ment as  applied  to  man,  while  they  bear 
witness  to  the  identity  in  all  important 
characters  of  the  oldest  prehistoric  men  with 
that  variety  of  our  species  which  is  at  the 
present  clay  at  once  the  most  widely  extended 
and  the  most  primitive  in   its  manners  and 

usages. 

Comparisons  with  the  Bible. 

If  now  we  compare   these  facts  with  the 
Biblical  history  of  man,  Ave  find  certain  re- 


176  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

markable  coincidences,  which  I  shall,  to  save 
time,  state  under  a  few  definite  propositions 
which  will  require  but  little  illustration. 

1.  As  in  the  Bible  record  man  is  introduced 
in  the  same  creative  eeon  with  the  higher 
brute  animals,  so  in  geology  he  is  united  with- 
out any  break  to  the  close  of  the  Tertiary 
period  of  the  great  mammals.  We  have  seen 
that  in  Europe  the  existing  mammals  now 
contemporary  with  man  existed  in  the  Post- 
glacial era,  and  were  then  the  contemporaries 
of  many  creatures  now  extinct  either  locally 
or  wholly.  Thus  no  geological  break  sepa- 
rates man  from  the  Tertiary  age ;  and  if  we 
regard  the  Glacial  period  as  constituting  such 
a  break,  —  which,  however,  it  did  not,  —  still 
this  will  come  in  long  before  the  time  of 
man. 

2.  As  God  is  said  to  have  prepared  a  place 
for  man,  so  we  find  that  his  appearance  is 
preceded  by  the  close  of  the  Glacial  period, 
and  by  the  removal  out  of  his  way  of  many 
forms  of  animal  life.  We  must  not  under- 
stand the  Bible  as  picturing  an  Eden  in  which 
all  the  animals  of  the  world  were  contained. 
This  kind  of  representation  belongs  only  to 
nursery  toy-books.     It  is  expressly  said  that 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  177 

man  was  placed  in  Eden  with  a  selected  group 
of  animals  as  well  as  of  plants,  and  these  ani- 
mals and  plants  were  with  him  to  overspread 
the  habitable  earth,  replacing  everywhere 
those  surviving  from  the  Tertiary  age.*  This 
is  the  Bible  theory  of  the  mode  of  introduc- 
tion of  man,  and  it  corresponds  with  geologi- 
cal fact,  and  with  what  we  would  a  priori 
expect  in  the  case  of  the  introduction  of  any 
new  and  important  type. 

3.  In  both  records  man  is  geologically  mod- 
ern, coming  at  the  close  of  the  great  proces- 
sion of  animal  life ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that 
geology  concurs  with  revelation  in  not  finding 
any  new  species  introduced  since  the  creation 
of  man,  and  only  a  few  species  can  be  sup- 
posed to  have  been  introduced  along  with 
him.  Geologically  it  will  be  observed  man 
comes  after  the  culmination  of  mammalian 
life  in  the  Tertiary  age,  and  in  a  time  of  deca- 
dence, when  the  fauna  of  the  world  was  be- 
coming more  sparse  in  species,  and  when  the 
greater  and  nobler  species  were  being  removed. 
This  corresponds  precisely  with  the  indications 
of  Genesis. 

4.  The  oldest  men  whose  remains  have  been 

*  Gen.  ii.  18,  et  seq. 
12 


178  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

found  are  not  of  a  different  species  from  mod- 
ern men,  but,  on  the  contrary,  are  nearly 
allied  to  the  most  widely  distributed  modern 
race ;  while  their  great  stature  and  physical 
power  remind  us  of  the  nephilim,  or  giants  of 
Genesis.  They  testify,  in  short,  to  a  specific 
identity  and  common  descent  of  all  men ;  and 
their  great  bodily  development,  accompanied 
probably  with  great  longevity,  is  such  as 
geological  facts  would  lead  us  to  anticipate  in 
the  case  of  a  new  type  recently  introduced, 
rather  than  in  one  which  had  descended 
through  a  long  course  of  struggle  for  exist- 
ence from  an  inferior  ancestry. 

5.  The  cranial  capacity  of  these  earliest 
men  shows  that  they  were  as  much  lords  of 
creation  and  as  little  allied  to  brutes  as  their 
successors  are.  Further,  when  we  place  this 
fact  in  relation  with  the  statement  made  by 
Haeckel,  that,  according  to  the  latest  views  of 
derivation,  lemurs  or  monkey-like  animals  of 
low  type  in  the  Eocene  passed  into  apes  in 
the  Miocene,  and  these  into  men  in  the  Post- 
pliocene,  the  contradiction  between  this  and 
tlie  high  type  of  the  pre-historic  skulls  seems 
absolute,  especially  when  we  consider  the  un- 
changed characters  of  the  Turanian  race  from 


HISTORY   OF  MAN.  179 

the  Paheocosmic  age  to  the  present  clay.  The 
image  and  shadow  of  God  are  reflected  even 
from  Palaeocosmic  skulls,  and  they  show  no 
signs  of  affinity  with  brutes. 

6.  The  condition,  habits,  and  structure  of 
PaloBOCOsmic  men  correspond  with  the  idea 
that  they  may  be  rude  and  barbarous  offshoots 
of  more  cultivated  tribes,  and  therefore  realize 
as  much  as  such  remains  can  do  the  Bible  his- 
tory of  the  fall  and  dispersion  of  antediluvian 
men.  We  need  not  suppose  that  Adam  of  the 
Bible  was  precisely  like  the  old  man  of  Cro- 
magnon.  Rather  may  this  man  represent 
that  fallen  yet  magnificent  race  which  filled 
the  antediluvian  earth  with  violence,  and  prob- 
ably the  more  scattered  and  wandering  tribes 
of  that  race  rather  than  its  greater  and  more 
cultivated  nations.  Interpreted  in  this  way, 
our  PalaBocosmic  men  are  precisely  what  we 
should  expect  antediluvian  men  to  be.* 

Lastly.  Their  funeral  rites  and  the  traces  of 
their  religious  beliefs  point  to  a  similarity  with 
those  of  the  most  ancient  races  of  men,  which 
are  all  fairly  traceable  to  corruptions  of  those 
primitive  articles  of  faith  revealed  in  the  ear- 
lier part  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.     Into  this 

*  See  Appendix  D. 


180  THE   ORIGIN  AND  EARLY 

I  cannot  enter  here,  but  may  have  occasion  to 
refer  to  it  in  the  concluding  lecture  of  this 
course. 

In  the  mean  time  we  may  surely  conclude 
that  all  the  above  coincidences  cannot  be 
accidental,  and  that  what  we  know  of  primi- 
tive man  from  geological  investigation  pre- 
sents no  contradiction  to  the  history  of  his 
origin  in  the  Bible ;  but  rather  gives  such  cor- 
roboration as  warrants  the  expectation  that, 
as  our  knowledge  of  pre-historic  men  increases, 
it  will  more  and  more  fully  bring  out  the 
force  of  those  few  and  bold  touches  with 
which  it  has  pleased  God  to  enable  his  ancient 
prophets  to  sketch  the  early  history  of  our 
species.  These  coincidences  are  the  more 
remarkable  when  we  consider  the  primitive 
and  child-like  character  of  the  notices  in  Gen- 
esis, making  no  scientific  pretensions,  and 
introducing  what  they  tell  us  of  primitive  man 
merely  to  explain  and  illustrate  the  highest 
moral  and  religious  teachings.  Truth  and 
divinity  are  stamped  on  every  line  of  the 
early  chapters  of  Genesis,  alike  in  their  ar- 
chaic simplicity,  and  in  that  accuracy  as  to 
y  facts  which  enables  them  not  only  to  stand 
unharmed   amid    the    discoveries    of   modern 


HISTORY  OF  MAN.  181 

science,  but  to  display  new  beauties  as  we  are 
able  more  and  more  fully  to  compare  them 
with  the  records  stored  up  from  of  old  in  the 
recesses  of  the  earth.  Those  who  base  their 
hopes  for  the  future  on  the  glorious  revela- 
tions of  the  Bible  need  not  be  ashamed  of  its 
story  of  the  past. 


LECTUKE  VI. 

REVIEW   OF  MODERN   SCHOOLS    OF   THOUGHT. 


LECTURE    VI. 

REVIEW   OF   MODERN    SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT. 


Sceptical  Philosophies.  —  Materialistic  Science.  — ■ 
Evolutionist  Archaeology. — Modified  Christian- 
ity. 

["  PROPOSE  in  this  concluding  lecture  to  no- 
tice some  of  the  errors  and  partial  truths, 
respecting  our  subject,  that  are  more  or  less 
current,  and  to  inquire  wherein  they  are  false 
or  defective,  and  how  they  are  to  be  treated. 
I  may  take  as  a  motto  a  remarkable  saying  of 
our  Lord  to  the  Saclducees  of  his  day  :  "  Ye  do 
err,  not  knowing  the  Scriptures,  nor  the  power 
of  God."  Jesus  was  always  more  tender  with 
the  Sadducees  than  with  the  Pharisees.  He 
evidently  regarded  an  honest  sceptic  as  more 
estimable  than  a  ritualist,  and  even  a  little 
science  as  a  better  thing  than  a  mere  round  of 
hypocritical  performances ;  and  this  tender- 
ness is  apparent  in  the  mild  rebuke  which  I 


186  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

have  quoted  ;  and  which  I  think  well  charac- 
terizes the  scientific  infidelity  of  our  clay. 
Men  err  in  judgment  from  not  knowing  the 
Scriptures,  and  so  attribute  to  them  doctrines 
which  are  really  not  those  of  the  Bible.  They 
err  from  not  knowing,  or  rather  not  having 
distinct  conceptions  of,  the  being  and  power  of 
God.  Their  want  of  knowledge  may  proceed 
from  inadvertence,  or  from  want  of  oppor- 
tunity, or  perhaps  from  a  natural  dislike  to 
higher  truth,  or  an  incapacity  to  perceive  it. 
Much,  however,  of  their  error  is  due,  I  fear,  to 
the  imperfect  presentation  of  truth  by  those 
who  know  it,  and  to  the  false  glosses  and  bad 
morals  of  the  Pharisees. 

Sceptical  Philosophies. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that 
a  large  part  of  the  opposition  to  religion  attrib- 
uted to  science  really  proceeds  from  a  philos- 
ophy which  has  little  connection  with  science, 
and  which  I  would  therefore  mention  merely 
in  its  relation  to  the  views  of  scientific  men. 
The  philosophies  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  of 
John  Stuart  Mill,  for  example,  though  diverse 
from  each  other,  lie  at  the  foundation  of  much 
of  this,  as  it  appears  in  England  and  in  this 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  187 

country.     Neither  of  them  is  in  precise  accord 
with  science  any  more  than  with  the  Bible. 
Both  philosophies  agree  in  relegating  Gocl  to 
the  domain  of  the  unknowable,  or  at  least  of 
the  unknown,  though  in  different  ways  ;  but 
in  so  far  as  they  are  related  to  science,  they 
proceed    from    this    point   in   very    different 
paths.     Spencer  takes  a  constructive  method, 
and,  assuming  matter  and  forces,  proceeds  by 
a  skilful  use  of  analogy  to  assure  us  that  these 
can  successively  produce  all  forms  of  being. 
But  this  constructive  method  is  the  very  oppo- 
site of  that  of  true  science,  however  it  may  be 
supported  by  illustrations  taken  from  scientific 
facts.     It  postulates  in  the  first  place  certain 
self-existing  forces  and   atoms  of  matter,  or 
both,  endowed  with  certain  powers,  and,  in- 
stead of  diminishing  the  mystery  of  existence, 
forces  it  back  and  concentrates   it   on  these 
atoms  or  forces,  which,  if  not  produced  by  an 
intelligent   Creator,  are   far   more  wonderful 
and  inexplicable   than  the  arrangements   for 
which   they   are   supposed    to    account.     Its 
argument,  after  the  assumption  of  the  almost 
omnipotent  resources  claimed  for  matter  and 
force,  is  after  all  merely  an  argument  of  anal- 
ogy and  not  of  the  inductive  character  required 


188  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

in  science.  If  scientific  men  are  captivated 
with  this  philosophy,  I  believe  this  is  due  prin- 
cipally to  its  gorgeous  generalizations,  and  the 
profuse  use  it  makes  of  comparisons  based  on 
scientific  facts.  For  this  very  reason,  its  in- 
fluence in  discouraging  true  science  and  in 
tempting  to  vague  speculations  has  been  of 
the  most  marked  character,  and  has  vitiated 
too  much  both  of  the  original  investigation 
and  scientific  education  of  our  time. 

Mill,  on  the  contrary,  in  holding  that  all 
knowledge  is  only  relative  and  phenomenal, 
and  that  causation  is  merely  invariable  se- 
quence, cuts  at  the  roots  of  our  belief  both  in 
matter  and  force ;  and  in  this  way  throws 
doubt  on  all  that  science  would  regard  as  the 
essence  of  things,  leaving  us  as  destitute  of  a 
basis  for  our  knowledge  of  nature  as  for  our 
knowledge  of  God.  It  is,  however,  only  just 
to  say  that  in  his  essay  on  Theism,  his  latest 
work,  published  only  after  his  death,  he  bears 
what,  from  his  point  of  view,  must  be  consid- 
ered a  most  remarkable  testimony  to  the 
power  and  the  word  of  God.  Discarding  as 
valueless  the  a  priori  argument  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  he  regards  as  the  only  valid  ar- 
gument that  from  design,  and  shows  that  this 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT. 


189 


is  really  of  an  inductive  character,  and  of  no 
mean  force  when  considered  in  the  case  of  the 
more  complex  animal  structures,  as   for   in- 
stance the  eye,  to  which  he  specially  refers  as 
indicating   design.     As   already  observed,  in 
preferring    the    argument    from    design,    he 
closely  agrees  with  Scripture,  which  uses  that 
argument  alone  in  those  passages  in  which  it 
reasons  on  the  subject,  as  for  example  in  the 
concluding  chapters  of  Job,  and  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans.     It 
is  certainly  a  remarkable  coincidence  that  the 
only  way  in  which  Paul  thinks  the  heathen 
could,  without  revelation,  attain  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  God,  is  precisely  that  which  the  scep- 
tical English  philosopher   singles  out  as  the 
only  argument  valid  to  his  mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  regards  the  principle 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  as  held  by  evo- 
lutionists, as  a  "  startling  and  prima  facie  im- 
probability," and  will  only  admit  that  "  it  is 
not  so  absurd  as  it  looks,  and  that  the  analo- 
gies which  have  been  discovered  by  experi- 
ence, favorable  to  its  possibility,  far  exceed 
what  any  one  would  have  supposed  before- 
hand." This  is,  I  think,  from  his  point  of 
view,  a  fair  estimate  of  the  value  of  evolution 


190  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

as  a  means  of  accounting  for  organic  struct- 
ures  and  species ;  and  the  value  of  the  analo- 
gies, when  examined  scientifically,  is  even  less 
than  Mill  imagined.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
this  estimate  of  evolution,  on  the  part  of  a 
thinker  so  severe  and  logical  as  Mill,  will  have 
its  weight  with  the  younger  scientific  men, 
who  are  so  easily  deluded  with  the  brilliant 
phantoms  of  Spencerianism. 

It  is  true  that  Mill  was,  even  at  the  last,  to 
such  an  extent  ignorant  of  the  power  of  God 
that  he  affirms  that,  in  so  far  as  the  natural 
argument  goes,  it  fails  to  prove  omnipotence. 
He  can  believe  only  in  a  God  of  limited  re- 
sources. On  this  point,  however,  it  is  very 
questionable  if  the  details  on  which  he  relies 
to  prove  imperfection  in  nature  have  any  such 
significance,  and  in  so  far  as  Scripture  is  con- 
cerned he  does  not  take  into  the  account  the 
explanations  which  it  gives.  For  example, 
(1)  the  incompleteness  of  our  knowledge  of 
God's  plans,  for  "  his  thoughts  are  very  deep ; 
—  his  ways  are  unsearchable ; "  or  (2)  the 
necessary  imperfection  of  created  things  and 
their  incomplete  reflection  of  their  Maker,  for 
the  works  of  nature  are  not  in  themselves  like 
God,  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  their  essence 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT.  191 

and  modes  of  existence  diverse  from  Him  ;  or 
(3)  the  compensations  which  are  in  God's 
power,  as,  for  example,  when  he  overrules 
physical  evil  for  moral  good;  or  (4)  the  im- 
perfection arising  from  the  introduction  of 
sin;  or  (5)  the  progressive  development  of 
God's  plans  in  history,  and  the  impossibility 
of  discerning  all  their  scope  at  any  one  point 
of  time. 

The  German  pantheists  endeavor  to  combine 
these  realistic  and  idealistic  philosophies  in  the 
conception  of  a  universal,  all-pervading  Cosmos, 
neither  spiritual  nor  natural,  neither  God  nor 
matter  nor  force,  yet  including  all;  and 
developing  all  things  from  itself  to  return 
into  it  again.  This,  however,  though  having 
roots  both  in  theology  and  philosophy,  is  an 
idea  foreign  to  physical  and  natural  science. 
I  mention  these  theories  merely  to  say  that 
they  do  not  belong  specially  to  my  subject,  any 
further  than  they  aid  in  producing  the  actual 
state  of  mind  in  which  we  find  scientific  men. 

Materialistic  Science. 

Passing  to  the  materialistic  science  of  the 
time,  we  may  take  as  an  example  of  this  a 
production  which  has  excited  much  attention, 


192  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

not  so  much  on  its  own  account  as  on  account 
of  the  quarter  whence  it  emanates,  and  the 
state  of  the  scientific  mind  which  it  indicates 
or  supposes,  —  the  recent  address  of  Professor 
Tyndall  as  President  of  the  British  Association. 
In  its  aspect  with  reference  to  Scripture, 
this  address  is  first  of  all  remarkable  for  its 
ignoring  altogether  the  position  of  the  Bible 
with  respect  to  nature,  and  neglecting  to 
acknowledge  the  obligations  of  science  to  God's 
Word.  Truly  stating  the  low  and  superstitious 
conception  of  nature,  which  led  to  the  poly- 
theism of  antiquity,  Tyndall  gives  credit  to 
the  atomic  philosophy  of  Democritus  and  Epi- 
curus for  raising  their  contemporaries  to  a 
higher  conception  of  the  unity  of  nature,  and 
he  calls  their  philosophy  science,  which  it  was 
not  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term.  But  he 
omits  to  state  that,  long  before  these  Greek 
philosophers,  Moses  had  established  in  the 
Pentateuch  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  nature, 
and  this  on  a  basis  which  has  lasted  to  our 
own  time  and  overspread  the  whole  civilized 
world ;  while  the  Epicurean  philosophy  failed 
to  root  out  the  idolatries  of  Greece,  and  failed 
to  leave  any  impress  on  later  ages.  Histori- 
cally, it  is  a  fact  that  one  Paul  of  Tarsus,  a 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT.  193 

disciple  of  Moses  and  of  Christ,  had  to  preach 
to  the  Epicureans  of  Athens,  as  late  as  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  the  doctrine  of  the 
unity  of  God,  of  nature,  and  of  man ;  -and  that 
Athens,  standing  in  the  midst  of  its  idols,  could 
only,  like  Spencer  and  Mill  and  Tyndall,  bow 
before  an  •  "  unknown  God,"  till  Christianity 
had  overthrown  both  Stoicism  and  Epicurean- 
ism. Still  more  unfairly,  Tyndall,  while  thus 
leaving  out  of  sight  the  cosmogony  of  Scripture, 
attributes  to  the  Bible  and  to  Christ  those 
bigotries  of  the  middle  ages  which  were  due 
to  ignorance  of  the  Bible  and  to  an ti- Christian 
superstition.  Let  us  hope  that  in  this  he  errs, 
not  knowing  the  Scripture. 

Tyndall  ascribes  science  to  an  impulse 
whereby,  "  in  a  process  of  abstraction  from  ex- 
perience, we  form  physical  theories  which  lie 
beyond  the  pale  of  experience,  but  which 
satisfy  the  desire  of  the  mind  to  see  every 
natural  occurrence  resting  on  a  cause."  He  is 
willing,  however,  to  gratify  this  natural  desire 
only  to  a  certain  length.  He  traces  back  all 
material  things  to  atoms  having  certain  definite 
properties  ;  but  as  soon  as  we  venture  to  ask 
whence  these  atoms,  and  why  their  properties, 
he  peremptorily  says  :  "  Hitherto   shalt  thou 


194  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

come,  and  no  further."  This  is  his  ultimate 
dogma,  without  reason  or  cause.  So  when  we 
inquire  as  to  force,  he  is  willing  that  we  should 
correlate  forces,  assign  laws  to  gravitation,  and 
decide  that  heat  is  a  "  mode  of  motion ;  "  but 
we  must  inquire  no  further.  So  if  we  inquire 
as  to  consciousness  and  will  and  other  phe- 
nomena of  mind,  he  may  tell  us  that  these  are 
functions  of  brain ;  but  though  he  quotes 
Democritus  to  the  effect  that  mind  may  be 
composed  of  "  smooth  round  atoms,"  he  is  un- 
willing that  we  should  satisfy  our  desire  to 
assign  things  to  causes  any  further  than  the 
anatomist's  knife  can  carry  us.  There  is  no 
more  science  in  this  than  in  the  statement  of 
the  old  physicists  that  water  rises  in  an  empty 
tube  because  nature  abhors  a  vacuum. 

So  in  his  attempt  to  advocate  evolution 
on  scientific  grounds,  while  he  freely  admits 
that  to  believe  this  dogma  fully  we  must 
"  radically  change  our  notions  of  matter,"  — 
that  is,  must  transfer  to  matter  the  powers  of 
mind,  —  he  attempts  to  illustrate  the  doctrine 
by  the  supposed  development  of  the  eye. 
He  supposes  first  a  disturbance  of  chemical 
processes  in  the  animal  organism  similar  to 
those  which  light  causes  in  the  plant,  —  a  sup- 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT.  195 

position  chemically  untrue.  But,  granting 
this,  he  next  supposes  pigment  cells.  The 
eye,  he  says,  is  then  "  incipient,  but  it  is  only 
capable  of  distinguishing  between  light  and 
shade  ;  while,  contrary  to  fact,  the  pigment 
cells  are  supposed  to  be  the  seat  of  this  sen- 
sitiveness and  no  mention  is  made  of  the  nerve 
matter.  "  The  adjustment  continues,"  we 
are  told,  "  and  there  is  a  bulging  of  the 
epidermis  over  the  pigment  cells,"  —  why,  we 
are  not  told.  A  lens  is  now  "  incipient ;  "  and, 
through  the  "  operation  of  infinite  adjustments, 
the  organ  may  reach  the  perfection  of  the  eye 
of  an  eagle."  But  this  is  not  science.  It  is 
only  vague  speculation,  and  he  well  concludes 
with  the  remarkable  statement :  "In  fact  the 
wThole  process  of  evolution  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  a  power  absolutely  unsearchable  to 
the  intellect  of  man.  As  little  in  our  clay  as 
in  the  days  of  Job  can  man  by  searching 
find  this  power.*  Considered  fundamentally, 
then,  it  is  by  the  operation  of  an  insoluble 
mystery  that  life  on  earth  is  evolved,  species 

*  The  quotation  is  unfortunate  ;  for  Job  was  a  theist,  and 
his  question  reads  :  "  Canst  thou  find  out  the  deep  things  of 
God  1  canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection  I  It  is 
high  as  heaven ;  what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than  hades ; 
what  canst  thou  know  ?  " 


196  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

differentiated,  and  mind  unfolded,  from  their 
prepotent  elements  in  the  immeasurable  past." 
We  may  well  apply  here  to  Tyndall  the  latter 
part  of  our  Saviour's  reproof  :  "  You  err,  not 
knowing  the  power  of  God."  It  is  further  to 
be  observed  that  in  the  conclusion  of  this 
statement,  as  well  as  in  the  apology  or  vindi- 
cation which  he  has  published  subsequently  to 
the  address,  Tyndall  is  driven  to  take  up 
ground  which  is  actually  that  of  the  pantheists, 
whose  doctrines  he  would  no  doubt  altogether 
repudiate.  His  position  thus  obliges  him  to 
oscillate  between  materialism  and  pantheism, 
and  to  present  a  strange  aspect  of  inconsistency ; 
whereas  if  he  were  content  to  follow  up  the 
adjustments  of  nature  to  a  designing  Creator, 
all-pervading  yet  personal,  omnipotent  yet 
acting  by  law,  his  science  would  fall  at  once 
into  harmony  with  theism  and  with  the  Bible, 
without  requiring  him  to  submit  in  the  smallest 
degree  to  the  superstitions  and  ecclesiastical 
tyranny  which  he  seems  so  cordially  to  detest. 
A  second  phase  of  apparent  antagonism  of 
science  to  Scripture  is  that  which  concerns  the 
origin  of  life  and  organization.  The  doctrine 
of  "  archebiosis,"  as  it  has  been  called,  which 
implies  the  spontaneous  generation  of  living 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  197 

organisms  from  dead  matter,  has  recently  re- 
ceived some  apparent  support  from  the  bulky 
volumes  of  Bastian  on  the  "  Beginnings  of 
Life ; "  but  the  greatest  doubts  have  been 
thrown  upon  the  validity  of  his  experiments 
by  Sanderson,  Huxley,  and  others,  and  even 
a  cursory  survey  of  his  statements  and  illus- 
trations leads  to  the  conviction  that  his  work 
has  not  been  sufficiently  careful  and  accurate 
to  afford  trustworthy  results.  We  have  al- 
ready considered  this  theory  of  archebiosis, 
in  relation  to  the  scriptural  account  of  the 
creation  of  animals.  It  now  presents  itself  in 
antagonism  to  theism  in  general.  It  has  not, 
however,  as  yet  received  the  authentication  of 
facts  in  any  actual  experiment. 

Huxley  himself,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
by  his  doctrine  of  protoplasm  as  a  physical 
basis  of  life,  really  dispenses  with  vitality  as  a 
distinct  force  or  modification  of  force,  as  much 
as  Bastian,  and  would  remove  all  difficulty  in 
supposing  the  origin  of  living  things  without 
any  creative  act.  Further,  in  his  recent 
paper  on  Animal  Automatism,  he  goes  as  far  as 
possible,  without  directly  reaching  it,  toward 
the  conclusion  that  the  animal  and  even  the 
human  organization  is  a  self-regulating  ma- 


198  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

chine,  requiring  no  special  vital  or  mental 
force  to  secure  its  actions  and  results.  The 
doctrine  of  protoplasm  has,  however,  been 
thoroughly  canvassed  by  Beale  ;  and  the  dis- 
tinction between  living,  dead,  and  formed 
protoplasm  clearly  defined.  Indeed,  the  posi- 
tion of  Huxley  here  has  been  illogical  from 
the  first ;  for,  while  attributing  to  protoplasm, 
or  mere  albuminous  matter,  the  properties  of 
life,  and  ridiculing  the  idea  of  a  vital  force,  he 
was  of  necessity  obliged  constantly  to  refer 
to  living  protoplasm  and  dead  protoplasm  as 
quite  distinct  in  properties,  while  denying  in 
his  hypothesis  that  any  such  distinction  could 
exist.  In  reviving  the  Cartesian  doctrine  of 
animal  automatism,  Huxley  has  well  illustrated 
some  very  remarkable  physiological  facts, 
which  rightly  understood  throw  some  light  on 
the  debatable  ground  between  the  merely 
physical  and  the  immaterial.  More  especially 
they  illustrate  that  nice  balancing  of  the  parts 
of  the  bodily  machine  which  enables  a  stimulus 
infinitesimally  small  from  without  or  within  to 
put  it  in  motion,  and  help  us  to  conceive  how 
mind  force,  though  in  itself  destitute  of  mate- 
rial potency,  can  act  on  the  material  organism. 
Dr.   Carpenter,  in  his  "  Mental  Physiology/' 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  199 

has  treated  these  facts  in  a  more  scientific 
spirit,  and  has  shown  that  they  imply  the  action 
of  mind  as  well  as  of  matter.  So  far,  there- 
fore, we  cannot  say  that  physiology,  any  more 
than  physical  science,  is  committed  to  the  side 
of  materialism,  or  can  relieve  us  from  the 
necessity  of  that  spiritual  world  to  which  the 
Bible  refers  us. 

It  is,  however,  deserving  of  notice,  as  an 
example  of  ignorance  or  misrepresentation  of 
Scripture,  that  Huxley  in  the  address  to  the 
British  Association,  in  which  he  so  strongly 
dissented  from  Bastian's  conclusions,  took  oc- 
casion to  ascribe  to  the  scriptural  writers  a 
belief  in  spontaneous  generation,  or  at  least 
in  transmutation  of  species,  in  common,  as  he 
said,  with  many  other  ancient  authorities. 
His  evidence  as  to  this  was  the  reference  by 
the  Apostle  Paul  to  the  germination  of  a  grain 
of  wheat,  in  illustration  of  the  resurrection. 
"That  which  thou  sowest,  thou  sowest  not 
the  body  that  shall  be,  but  a  bare  grain,  it 
may  be  of  wheat  or  some  other  grain :  but 
God  giveth  it  a  body,  according  as  he  pleases, 
and  to  each  kind  of  seed  a  body  of  its  own." 
It  seems  difficult  to  see  here  any  kind  of  doc- 
trine of  spontaneous  generation,  and  indeed 


200  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

the  whole  argument  is  of  the  opposite  sort. 
Paul  had  affirmed  that  the  grain  of  wheat  is 
not  quickened  except  it  die,  —  a  vivid  way  of 
putting  the  plain  truth  that  the  mass  of  the 
seed  perishes  in  favor  of  the  little,  almost 
invisible  germ  of  life  which  it  contains,  and 
which  springs  up  as  a  new  body.  He  next 
says  that  God  determines  the  body  it  shall 
have,  and  this  not  arbitrarily,  but  in  accord- 
ance with  his  own  law  of  constant  reproduc- 
tion,—  "  to  every  seed  its  own  body,"  accord- 
ing to  the  kind  of  seed  it  may  be.  There 
is  no  room  here  for  heterogenesis :  and  if  it 
were  possible  either  that  something  not  a  seed 
should  produce  a  new  body,  or  that  wheat 
should  produce  tares  or  tares  wheat,  the  argu- 
ment would  be  altogether  invalidated ;  for  it 
is  the  germ  of  spiritual  life  existing  in  the 
man  here  that  must  grow  up,  and  this  accord- 
ing to  its  kind,  in  the  future  completion  of 
the  spiritual  life.  Paul,  in  short,  most  per- 
fectly agrees  with  Moses  that  God  created 
plants  according  to  their  species,  otherwise  his 
illustration  might  go  to  show  that  a  wicked 
man  might  rise  in  the  resurrection  as  a  right- 
eous one,  or  the  reverse,  which  would  of  course 
entirely  subvert  his  whole  argument,  as  well 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT.  201 

as  the  whole  tendency  of  Bible  theology  from 
Genesis  to  Bevelation,  which  makes  a  man's 
character  and  conduct  in  this  world  the  sole 
tests  of  what  will  happen  to  him  in  the  next. 
We  thus  fail  to  secure  as  yet  any  material- 
istic solution  of  the  beginning  of  life ;  and.  till 
we  can  succeed  in  this,  we  need  not  inquire 
as  to  how  far  any  discovery  of  physical  causes 
for  the  origination  of  living  beings  would 
modify  our  views  of  theology.  It  is  evident 
also  that  the  question  of  derivation  of  one 
species  from  another  is  comparatively  of  sec- 
ondary importance ;  and  in  its  scriptural  as- 
pect relates  chiefly  to  the  meaning  we  are  to 
attach  to  the  views  of  mediate  creation  given 
in  Gen.  i.,  and  to  the  force  to  be  attached  to 
the  expression,  "  after  its  kind/'  relatively  to 
the  views  which  natural  science  may  settle  as 
to  the  limits  of  species.  These  points  we  have 
already  discussed,  and  also  to  some  extent  the 
more  important  questions  as  to  the  origin  of 
man. 

Evolutionist  Arcliceology. 

It  may  be  well,  however,  to  notice  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  presumed  origin  of  man  from 
lower  animals  is  followed  out  by  writers  of 


202  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

various  schools  of  archaeology  in  their  specula- 
tions on  primitive  culture  and  religion.  Tylor, 
Lubbock,  and  others  in  England,  and  their 
followers  in  this  country,  proceed  constantly 
on  the  assumption  that  all  human  culture  is  to 
be  traced  back  into  a  period  of  pre-historic 
darkness  in  which  man  had  scarcely  emerged 
from  a  brutal  condition.  In  short,  they  neither 
admit  the  scriptural  account  of  the  origin  of 
man  and  of  his  religion,  nor  do  they  admit  the 
power  of  God  to  create  a  being  in  his  own 
likeness.  These  men,  ignorant  like  the  Sad- 
ducees  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  the  power  of 
God,  claim  for  their  speculations  the  rank  of  a 
science,  and,  deducing  all  that  is  noblest  in 
humanity  from  all  that  is  lowest,  dispense  at 
once  with  Gocl  and  religion,  and  destroy  all  the 
grandest  historical  traditions  of  our  race.  As 
a  student  of  nature,  I  confess  I  have  less  re- 
spect for  them  than  for  the  mere  physicists 
and  physiologists,  who  at  least  collect  facts 
and  interrogate  nature  in  an  earnest  and  scien- 
tific manner,  and  are  less  animated  by  a  mean 
spirit  of  detraction  from  the  higher  aspects 
of  humanity. 

These  men  derive  all  religion  from  myths, 
trace   back   sacrifice    and   prayer   to   merely 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  203 

human  relations  among  savages,  resolve  the 
belief  in  immortality  into  the  result  of  dreams, 
and  the  idea  of  God  into  a  fanciful  ascription 
of  "  animism  "  to  dead  objects.  If  their  con- 
clusions had  any  scientific  value,  they  would 
be  much  more  destructive  of  scriptural  and 
rational  theology  than  any  thing  arising  from 
physical  or  natural  science  can  be.  Fortu- 
nately they  do  not  come  within  the  limits  of 
true  inductive  science,  but  rather  constitute  a 
sort  of  new  and  debased  mythology,  founded 
on  certain  scientific  and  historical  facts,  clothed 
in  the  garb  of  fanciful  speculation.  They  have 
in  them,  however,  an  element  of  truth  which 
becomes  manifest  when  we  compare  them 
with  the  simple  theology  of  the  early  chapters 
of  Genesis,  and  with  the  crude  beliefs  that 
have  replaced  true  religion  in  the  minds  of 
the  lower  and  more  isolated  races  of  men, 
and  they  are  worthy  of  notice  here,  if  for  no 
other  reason,  because  they  tend  to  give  a  new 
importance  to  the  study  of  these  "  unwritten  " 
religions  of  the  world,  and  to  their  compar- 
ison with  the  earlier  stages  of  divine  reve- 
lation. 

We  may  take,  as  an  example  of  their  treat- 
ment of  religion,  the  instinct  of  immortality, 


204  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

which  it  is  admitted  is  universal  among  men. 
This  is  quietly  attributed  to  the  fact  that  men 
dream  of  their  dead  friends  or  enemies,  and 
thus  have  everywhere  come  to  believe  in  their 
continued  existence  after  death.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  this  is  merely  a  convenient  eva- 
sion of  a  difficult  fact.  Men  in  a  rude  and 
primitive  state  dream  little.  They  are  much 
more  likely  to  dream  of  affairs  that  concern 
themselves  than  of  their  dead  friends,  and  such 
dreams  are  likely  to  be  only  occasional  and 
exceptional.  Nor  is  there  so  close  a  connec- 
tion between  such  dreams  and  the  future  life 
of  the  dead  as  to  make  the  belief  universal. 
It  is  much  more  likely  that  the  belief  proceeds 
from  some  cause  belonging  to  the  primitive 
state  of  man,  and  perhaps  coeval  with  his 
origin.  The  Bible  gives  us  a  more  logical 
solution.  Man  was  originally  immortal,  and 
it  was  consequently  a  part  of  his  nature  to 
cherish  the  hope  of  an  undying  life.  When 
he  lost  the  gift  of  immortality,  he  had  a  hope 
held  out  to  him  of  its  restoration,  and  this 
hope  necessarily  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all 
the  religions  of  humanity,  and  is  the  last  part 
of  religion  which  remains  in  the  midst  of  its 
corruption  and  decay.     Wherever  we  find  this 


SCHOOLS  OF   THOUGHT.  205 

belief,  under  however  corrupt  and  degenerate 
forms,  we  should  respect  it  as  a  relic  of  primi- 
tive faith,  nay  more,  as  a  primitive  instinct  or 
intuition  depending  on  the  original  immortality 
of  man,  and  should  not  with  the  sceptic  rele- 
gate it  to  the  domain  of  mere  myth  and  fancy. 
Christian  writers  have  often  been  false  to  the 
Bible  and  to  the  cause  of  truth  in  their  treat- 
ment of  such  old  beliefs.  Let  us  sift  from 
them  the  errors  with  which  they  are  mixed, 
and  retain  the  golden  grains  of  truth. 

Sceptical  writers  of  this  school  often  make 
another  strange  mistake  or  wilful  misrepresen- 
tation, in  the  opposite  direction,  in  denying 
the  existence  of  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state 
in  the  Old  Testament,  while  they  admit  its  oc- 
currence in  the  rudest  heathenisms.  Now  it 
is  true  that  this  doctrine  is  little  insisted  on  in 
the  Old  Testament,  because  it  was  an  instinct 
already  implanted  in  men's  minds,  and  because 
it  had  been  made  immoral  use  of  by  priests, 
who  pretended  by  their  rites  and  ceremonies 
to  give  bad  men  a  passport  into  future  happi- 
ness. The  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament 
denied,  not  the  reality  of  a  future  state,  but  the 
power  of  priests  and  external  forms  to  give 
wicked  men  a  claim  to  its  happiness,  and  they 


206  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

insisted  more  on  a  holy  life  in  this  world,  and 
on  the  doctrine  of  the  present  and  immediate 
chastisement  of  God's  people  for  their  sins,  — 
a  doctrine  also  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
perhaps  to  be  more  inculcated  than  it  now  is. 
But  the  promise  of  salvation  made  to  Adam, 
the  promise  to  Abraham,  the  Messianic  doc- 
trine, the  system  of  sacrificial  atonement,  and 
a  hundred  incidental  references,  show  that,  as 
our  Saviour  said,  the  God  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment "  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the 
living."  If  life  and  immortality  are  said  to 
be  brought  to  light  by  Christ,  this  is  not  that 
they  are  initiated,  but  more  clearly  and  plainly 
made  known. 

The  offences  of  this  school  of  writers  against 
truth  go,  however,  yet  farther.  Another  re- 
lates to  the  belief  in  God.  Primitive  man,  if 
destitute  of  knowledge  of  God,  feels  for  him 
in  nature.  Paul  argues  that  human  reason  so 
seeking  for  God  can  discover  his  power  and 
his  divinity,  and  holds  that  the  true  God  is 
not  far  from  every  one  of  us.  The  modern 
school  of  archaeology  maintains  that  man  first 
deifies  and  personifies  all  objects  around  him, 
and  only  by  slow  and  painful  steps  attains  to 
polytheism  or  pantheism,  and  in  a  higher  stage 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT.  207 

of  culture  reaches  to  imagination^  and  senti- 
ments respecting  a  Supreme  Gocl ;  while  at  a 
still  higher  stage  he  comes  with  Spencer  and 
Mill  to  find  that  he  was  mistaken,  and  that 
after  all  no  such  being  can  be  found  or  known. 
But  this  is  wholly  conjecture.  Perhaps  there 
is  an  historical  basis  for  monotheism,  as  well  as 
for  a  future  state.  How  does  it  stand  in  the 
Bible  ?  Have  any  of  us  ever  endeavored  to 
realize  the  theology  of  Adam,  and  what  it 
would  be  to  hear  the  voice  of  God  in  the 
evening  breeze  in  the  trees  of  Eden,  and  to 
learn  from  that  and  our  own  consciousness 
his  nature  and  unity  ?  Or  if  we  cannot 
clearly  conceive  this,  let  us  add  to  it  those 
strange  words,  that  sound  like  an  echo  from 
Eden,  which  Paul  spoke  on  the  Acropolis  of 
Athens,  — "  that  they  should  seek  God,  if 
haply  they  might  feel  after  him,  and  find  him, 
though  he  be  not  far  from  any  one  of  us :  for 
in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being."  Let  us  suppose  this  to  be  the  sum 
total  of  our  theology,  and  then  think  how 
easily  out  of  this  the  mind  of  humanity  might 
develop  in  the  course  of  the  ages  all  the  more 
rude  beliefs  that  have  ever  existed  in  the 
world;  every   one    of   them   containing   this 


208  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

much  of  theology  with  various  additions  and 
under  different  modifications. 

Or  let  us  suppose  that  we  possess  in  a  tradi- 
tional form  the  story  of  creation  and  of  the 
fall,  and  this  alone.  Let  us  think  of  the  plu- 
ral Elohim  with  attributes  of  unity,  and  cre- 
ating by  his  vivifying  breath  or  Spirit  and  by 
his  almighty  Word ;  of  the  golden  age  of 
Eden ;  of  the  fall  and  the  promised  Saviour, 
the  coming  one,  the  Jehovah.  Now  let  us  go 
forth  with  this  as  our  sole  treasure  of  divine 
knowledge,  and  idealize  it  into  a  triple  God, 
and  deify  the  God-given  woman,  the  first 
mother,  as  an  Astarte,  an  Isis,  an  Artemis,  or 
Atahensic,  and  worship  as  the  coming  Saviour 
every  great  hero  and  benefactor,  whether  a 
Vishnu  or  Osiris,  a  Hercules  or  Apollo,  or  an 
American  Yoskeka.  Here  we  have  again  the 
germ  of  the  more  complex  religions.  Moses 
has  given  us  in  the  old  Bible  story,  and  pur- 
posely, no  doubt,  the  substance  of  the  whole. 

It  is.  pretended  by  some  of  the  writers  of 
the  school  now  under  consideration,  in  oppo- 
sition to  an  historical  basis  for  primitive  relig- 
ions, that  traditions  cannot  survive  for  any 
long  time.  They  forget,  however,  that  a  tra- 
ditional belief,  interwoven  with  men's  hopes 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  209 

and  fears,  becomes  a  part  of  their  nature,  and 
is  preserved  and  transmitted  after  the  facts  on 
which  it  is  based  are  quite  forgotten.  So  a 
tradition  incorporated  into  the  songs  of  a  peo- 
ple, or  crystallized  in  some  short  and  easily 
learned  form  of  words,  may  become  as  perma- 
nent as  if  inscribed  on  granite.  Traditions 
are  like  footprints  on  the  sand.  They  are 
usually  effaced  by  the  next  tide,  but  geolo- 
gists know  that,  buried  under  sediments  and 
hardened  into  rock,  they  may  take  their  place 
among  the  most  imperishable  monuments  of 
the  earth's  crust,  and  may  exist  unimpaired 
long  after  the  bones  of  the  animals  that  pro- 
duced them  have  mouldered  into  dust. 

Why  cannot  we  teach  these  truths  to  mod- 
ern heathens  as  Paul  did  to  their  predecessors 
at  Athens  ?  One  of  the  reasons  which  have 
induced  me  to  dwell  a  little  on  them  here,  is 
to  indicate  a  biblical  method  of  dealing:  with 
the  pseudo-science  of  the  evolutionist  archae- 
ology, which  has  grown  up  to  so  great  propor- 
tions, especially  in  Germany  and  England,  and 
which,  from  the  interest  that  attaches  to  its 
vast  agglomerations  of  facts  and  fancies,  is 
pervading  all  our  literature. 

14 


210  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

Modified  Christianity. 

It  is  a  relief  to  turn  from  these  writers 
to  men  like  Max  Miiller  and  Kingsley,  who, 
though  feeble-kneed  in  orthodoxy  and  amena- 
ble to  some  extent  to  the  charge  of  not  well 
knowing  the  Scriptures  and  the  power  of  God, 
have  at  least  some  regard  for  the  religious 
beliefs  of  mankind,  and  are  not  tied  to  the  car 
of  the  evolutionary  Juggernaut  which  is  crush- 
ing the  brain  and  heart  alike  of  science  and 
theology. 

Max  Miiller,  in  his  lectures  on  the  "  Science 
of  Religion,"  and  Kingsley,  in  his  pleasant  if 
superficial  lectures  on  "  Superstition  and  Sci- 
ence," have  given  us  some  thoughts  sugges- 
tive beyond  the  applications  they  make  of 
them,  with  a  reference  to  which  I  may  fitly 
close  these  lectures. 

Miiller,  in  attempting  to  classify  religions, 
objects  to  the  distinction  of  natural  from 
revealed  religions,  on  the  ground  that  no 
religion  is  purely  natural,  and  that  revealed 
religion  should  include  the  elements  of  what 
is  natural.  He  further  objects  that  revealed 
religion  would  be  taken  to  include  only  the 
religion  of  the  Bible,  while  all  other  religions 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  211 

would  be  relegated  to  the  domain  of  natural 
religion.  Midler's  conclusion  here  is  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  the  teachings  of  the  Bible, 
but  his  reason  for  arriving  at  it  shows  that  he 
does  not  fully  apprehend  the  matter  in  ques- 
tion. Natural  religion  in  the  view  of  the  Bible 
would  include  all  that  appertains  to  the  origi- 
nal image  of  God  in  man  and  all  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  power  and  divinity  of  God  which 
man  can  learn  from  nature.  This  should  and 
does  more  or  less  exist  in  every  religion  what- 
ever, and  on  many  of  these  points,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  heathen  religions  occupy  com- 
mon ground  with  the  Bible.  On  the  other 
hand,  divine  revelation  to  man  gives  him  those 
higher  spiritual  truths  which  he  cannot  learn 
for  himself  ;  and  since,  according  to  the  Bible, 
such  revelation  began  in  the  time  of  the  first 
man,  and  was  continued  more  or  less  in  all  the 
following  generations,  this  also  must  enter  in 
some  degree  into  every  form  of  religion.  The 
elements  of  natural  and  revealed  religion  are 
therefore  to  be  found  side  by  side  everywhere, 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  no  religion  is 
wholly  natural  or  wholly  revealed,  and  that 
no  religion  is  wholly  false. 

The  classification  which  Miiller  adopts   of 


212  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

religions  into  three  divisions,  corresponding 
to  the  three  great  groups  of  languages,  —  the 
Turanian,  the  Aryan,  and  the  Semitic, — is 
more  in  accordance,  as  far  as  it  goes,  with 
Bible  history  than  he  seems  to  be  aware. 
The  Turanian  religions  are  universally  re- 
garded as  the  most  simple  and  primitive,  and 
they  still  exist  in  full  force  among  the  ruder 
American  and  North  Asiatic  tribes,  and  in 
more  refined  form  in  the  oldest  religion  of 
China.  What  are  these  religions?  They 
include  a  belief  in  immortality,  often  developed 
into  a  worship  of  ancestors,  a  recognition  of  a 
God  in  nature,  sometimes  as  a  Great  Spirit 
and  Creator,, often  with  a  generally  diffused 
deification  of  nature.  These  elements  lie  at 
the  basis  of  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  religions 
as  well.  What  are  they  all  but  more  or  less 
disintegrated  remnants  of  that  primitive  faith 
in  God  and  an  immortal  life  which  we  find  in 
the  early  chapters  of  Genesis,  —  a  more  or  less 
corrupt  survival  of  antediluvian  and  patri- 
archal religion  ?  The  religion  of  the  Aryan 
races,  as  we  have  it  in  the  ancient  mythologies 
of  India  and  Greece,  must  have  sprung  from 
a  faith  akin  to  that  of  the  Turanians,  but 
further  developed.     It  begins  with  the  idea  of 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  21& 

a  Heaven-father,  or  supreme  god,  Dyauspitar, 
Zeus-pater  or  Jupiter,  whose  name  Miiller 
compares  with  the  Christian  invocation,  "  Our 
Father  in  Heaven,"  and  whose  attributes  are 
distinctly  related  to  some  of  those  of  the  true 
God.  It  goes  on  to  add  to  this  various  me- 
diatorial and  sacrificial  ideas,  connected  with 
a  series  of  principal  gods  and  deified  heroes 
amalgamated  with  old  nature-gods  or  mani- 
tous.  It  is,  in  short,  aboriginal  theism  run 
wild  into  a  labyrinth  of  subordinate  mediators 
and  intercessors,  and  divorced  by  a  corrupt 
anthropomorphism  from  the  higher  moral 
aspects  of  religion.  The  Semitic  religions,  if 
we  except  that  of  the  Jews,  followed  a  similar 
course  of  development,  except  that  they  clung 
closer  to  monotheism,  and  to  the  human  rather 
than  the  physical  elements  of  religion.  Hence 
a  higher  and  grander  character  even  in  the 
Semitic  heathenism.  The  relation  of  this  to 
the  Hebrew  monotheism  is  very  close,  even  in 
the  name  of  God ;  El,  or  Eloah,  or  Elohim, 
being  prevalent  throughout. 

Thus  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  combine  the 
elements  of  the  whole  of  the  ancient  religions, 
and  though  they  denounce  the  corruptions  by 
which  heathens  worshipped  the  creature  rather 


214  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

than  the  Creator,  they  are  willing  to  acknowl- 
edge the  remnants  of  truth  which  corrupt 
religions  contain,  as  we  find  in  Paul's  speech 
at  Athens  and  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Eomans. 
"  Forasmuch  as  we  are  the  offspring  of  God, 
we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  godhead  is 
like  unto  gold  or  silver  or  stone  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device.  Howbeit  those  past 
times  of  ignorance  God  hath  overlooked,  but 
now  he  commancleth  all  men  everywhere  to 
repent." #  "Although  they  knew  God,  they 
glorified  him  not  as  God,"  and  so  were  given 
up  to  all  base  idolatries  and  evil  ways.  Still 
"  when  the  Gentiles  who  have  no  law  do  by 
nature  the  works  of  the  law,"  and  obey  the 
dictates  of  their  conscience  according  to  the 
light  they  have,  they  will  be  so  far  justified 
"  in  that  day  Avhen  God  shall  judge  the  secret 
counsels  of  men."  t  This  is  the  true  spirit  of 
biblical  archaeology,  and  it  should  be  applied 
to  the  interpretation  of  all  the  traditional 
beliefs  of  mankind,  rather  than  the  fanciful 
theory  of  nature-myths. 

What  I  mean  may  be  farther  illustrated  by 
a  familiar  example.  One  of  the  earliest  and 
most  wide-spread  idolatries  is  the  worship  of  a 

*  Acts  xvii.  f  Romans  ii. 


SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT.  215 

female  deity —  Ishtar,  Astarte,  or  Isis  —  mother 
of  men,  or  of  a  Saviour  hero,  or  of  both.  The 
root  of  this  must  have  been  in  a  tradition 
similar  to  our  story  of  Eve  and  of  the  fall,  and 
not,  as  often  alleged,  in  a  deification  of  the 
moon  or  of  night. #  The  naturalness  of  the 
idea  is  seen  in  the  wide-spread  modern  adora- 
tion of  the  Virgin  Mary  as  the  mother  of  God, 
which  has  precisely  the  same  relation  to  the 
Gospel  story  of  the  nativity  that  the  older 
worship  bears  to  the  story  of  the  fall ;  and  just 
as  the  older  female  deities  were  associated  in 
their  worship  with  heaven  and  the  heavenly 
bodies,  with  seasons  of  the  year  and  with 
sacred  places,  so  is  the  more  modern  goddess, 
and  but  for  the  historical  facts,  it  would  be 
quite  easy  to  reduce  the  Virgin  Queen  of 
Heaven  to  a  nature  myth.  Even  those  who 
reject  all  historical  grounds  for  the  ancient 
idolatries,  and  who  ridicule  what  they  are 
pleased  to  term  "  euhemerism,"  cannot  deny  the- 
historical  basis  of  the  adoration  of  the  virgin, 

*  A  remarkable  vindication  of  this  view  has  been  recently 
afforded  by  Smith's  translations  of  the  Chaldean  account  of  the 
deluge,  in  which  Ishtar  is  represented  as  pleading  for  her  children, 
"  I  have  begotten  man,  and  let  him  not  like  the  sons  of  the  fishes 
fill  the  sea."  The  writer  of  this  old  legend  was  clearly  a  "  eu- 
hemerist,"  and  identified  Ishtar  with  Eve. 


216  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

or  fail  to  see  the  analogy  which  it  presents  to 
the  worships  derived,  according  to  the  Bible, 
from  the  story  of  Eve. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  so- 
called  science  of  religion,  in  so  far  as  there  is 
any  true  science  in  it,  really  brings  us  back 
to  the  religion  of  the  Bible ;  because  there 
seems  room  to  fear  that,  in  these  times  of 
atheistic  literature,  such  loose  and  partial  and 
at  the  same  time  attractive  views  as  those  of 
Mliller  may  gain  a  currency  to  which  they  are 
not  entitled,  unless  with  such  qualifications 
and  explanations  as  those  above  suggested. 

An  interesting  view  of  the  relations  of 
science  to  superstition  on  the  one  hand,  and 
religion  on  the  other,  may  be  obtained  from 
the  lectures  of  Canon  Kingsley  above  referred 
to.  He  defines  superstition  to  be  an  un- 
reasoning fear  of  the  unknown,  and  very 
cleverly  traces  the  steps  by  which  ignorant 
and  barbarous  peoples  may  come  to  dread  the 
supposed  demons  of  the  storm,  the  rapid  or 
the  landslip,  and  to  attach  superstitious  rever- 
ence to  animals  and  plants.  No  doubt  this  is 
a  large  and  fertile  source,  if  not  the  principal 
source,  of  superstition ;  and  this  accords  with 
what  we  have  already  seen  of  the  use  of  the- 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  217 

early  chapters  of  Genesis  in  opposing  such 
tendencies.  He  shows  how  superstition  may 
be  remedied  by  a  better  knowledge  of  natural 
laws  derived  from  science  ;  and  no  doubt  there 
is  much  truth  in  this,  since,  so  soon  as  men 
learn  that  natural  processes  depend  on  in- 
variable and  ascertainable  laws,  they  learn 
also  to  hope  for  mastery  of  nature  and  cease 
to  dread  the  evils  which  they  can  avert.  He 
fails,  however,  to  observe  that  there  are  many 
natural  sources  of  pain  and  evil  which  no 
science,  however  perfect,  has  hitherto  suc- 
ceeded in  overcoming,  and  that  a  boundless 
extent  of  the  dreaded  unknown  must  ever 
surround  the  little  circle  of  light  in  which 
science  enables  us  to  stand.  This  can  only  be 
finally  overcome  by  the  conviction  that  the 
unknown  is  in  the  hand  of  a  God  who  is  our 
Father  and  cares  for  us.  This  revelation  of 
God  to  man  must  ever  encircle  with  its 
infinite  embrace  the  limited  sphere  of  science. 
In  his  lecture  on  Science  he  contrasts  the 
fear  of  the  superstitious  with  the  boldness  of 
the  man  who  interrogates  nature  and  seeks  to 
pry  into  her  secrets.  He  singles  out  the  races 
and  men  who  have  thus  boldly  asserted  the 
mastery  of  man  over  nature,  and  justly  gives 


218  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

the  first  place  to  the  "  Old  Jews."  Sketching 
the  superstitions  of  Egypt  and  Canaan,  from 
which  they  emerged,  he  says  there  were 
among  them  a  few  men  —  "  sages,  prophets 
—  who  denounced  superstition  and  the  dread 
of  nature  as  the  parent  of  all  manner  of  vice 
and  misery,  who  said  that  they  discovered  in 
the  universe  an  order,  a  unity,  a  permanence 
of  law,  which  gave  them  courage  instead  of 
fear.  They  found  delight  and  not  dread  in 
the  thought  that  the  universe  obeyed  a  law 
which  could  not  be  broken ;  that  all  things 
continued  to  that  day  according  to  a  certain 
ordinance.  They  took  a  view  of  nature  totally 
new  in  that  age  —  healthy,  human,  cheerful, 
loving,  trustful,  and  yet  reverent  —  identical 
with  that  which  is  beginning  to  prevail  in  our 
own  day.  They  defied  those  volcanic  and 
meteoric  phenomena  to  which  their  country- 
men were  slaying  their  children  in  the  clefts 
of  the  rocks,  and,  like  Theophrastus's  supersti- 
tious man,  pouring  their  drink-offerings  to  the 
smooth  stones  of  the  valley,  and  declared  they 
would  not  fear,  though  the  earth  was  moved, 
and  though  the  hills  were  carried  into  the 
midst  of  the  sea."  He  adds  "  that  no  nation 
has  succeeded  in  perpetuating  a  school  of  in- 


SCHOOLS  OF  THOUGHT.  219 

ductive  physical  science  save  those  whose 
minds  have  been  saturated  with  these  same 
views  of  nature  which  they  have  —  as  an 
historic  fact  —  slowly  but  thoroughly  learnt 
from  the  historical  writings  of  the  Jewish 
sages." 

We  have  already  seen  how  true  all  this  is ; 
but  it  suggests  two  questions  to  which  Kings- 
ley  does  not  refer,  in  deference  perhaps  to  the 
unbelief  of  a  portion  of  his  Eoyal  Institution 
audience.  Of  what  use  would  such  courage 
and  conviction  be  if  there  were  not  a  paternal 
God  beyond  the  volcano,  the  earthquake  and 
the  storm,  who  could  and  would  overrule  for 
the  good  of  his  children  those  terrible  agen- 
cies ?  The  second  is,  how  did  the  Jew  more 
than  other  men  learn  all  this,  and  may  it  not 
have  been  that  God,  in  his  grace  and  mercy, 
revealed  these  great  and  glorious  truths  to  the 
prophets  who  taught  them  ?  If  not,  why  did 
not  the  Jew  himself  go  on  to  build  on  theism 
the  vast  fabric  of  science  which  has  grown  up 
among  modern  Christian  nations  ?  The  only 
possible  answers  to  these  questions  bring  us 
back  to  the  glorious  old  truth  that  all  true 
science,  as  well  as  true  religion,  must  emanate 
from   the    Father   of    lights,  and   from   that 


220  REVIEW  OF  MODERN 

Divine  Word  which,  coming  into  the  world, 
lightens  every  man. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  refer  here 
to  the  many  great  and  good  men,  our  contem- 
poraries, who  have  held  fast  to  the  truth  of 
God's  word  while  exploring  the  mysteries  of 
nature,  or  who  have  rejoiced  to  magnify 
God's  works  which  men  behold,  while  di- 
recting others  to  his  higher  spiritual  revela- 
tion. Such  men  —  men  of  faith,  knowledge, 
and  action  —  God  has  highly  magnified  by  giv- 
ing them  the  chief  places  in  science,  in  philos- 
ophy, and  in  his  own  spiritual  kingdom ;  by 
giving  them  power  to  benefit  their  fellow- 
men,  and  to  live  in  their  grateful  remem- 
brance. May  we  follow  in  their  footsteps, 
and  enjoy  in  our  own  experience  the  com- 
bined blessings  of  faith  and  science.  It  has 
been  well  said,  "  If  men  of  piety  were  also 
men  of  science,  and  if  men  of  science  were  to 
read  the  Scriptures,  there  would  be  more  faith 
on  the  earth  and  also  more  philosophy."  Let 
us  hope  that  this  is  to  be  more  and  more 
realized  in  the  time  to  come. 

I  have  now  endeavored  to  sketch,  however 
roughly  and  imperfectly,  the  various  shades 
of  ignorance  and  half  knowledge  of  the  Scrip- 


SCHOOLS   OF   THOUGHT.  221 

tures  and  of  the  power  of  God  now  prevalent, 
from  the  dark  negation  of  Spencer  and  Mill 
up  to  the  modified  Christianity  of  Miiller  and 
Kingsley,  #  and  have  endeavored  to  bring  out 
in  contrast  to  these  the  grand  and  simple  con- 
sistency of  the  Word  of  God,  which  in  its 
assertion  of  unity,  order,  and  design  in  nature, 
strikes  the  key-note  of  all  true  science  and 
philosophy,  and,  in  its  power  for  the  regenera- 
tion of  man  and  his  return  to  the  family  of 
God,  contains  all  that  can  make  human  knowl- 
edge really  valuable  for  the  true  happiness  of 
our  species.  If  the  Bible  does  all  this  in  a 
way  plain,  historical,  and  progressive,  and 
through  the  means  of  successive  prophets  in 
the  lapse  of  ages,  this  is  a  method  more  con- 
sonant with  the  procedure  of  God  in  nature, 
and  more  suited  to  the  condition  of  man  than 
any  other.  And,  finally,  I  may  state,  as  the 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  that  the  Bible 
contains  within  itself  all  that  under  God  is 
required  to  account  for  and  dispose  of  all 
forms  of  infidelity,  and  to  turn  to  the  best  and 
highest  uses  all  that  man  can  learn  of  nature : 


*  I  have  spoken  of  Kingsley  as  a  living  writer;  but  as  these 
pages  are  passing  through  the  press,  the  Atlantic  cable  brings  the 
sad  intelligence  of  his  death. 


222  MODERN  SCHOOLS   OF  THOUGHT. 

if  only  its  truths  can  be  presented  in  an  intel- 
ligent and  loving  manner,  and  by  the  lips  of 
men  themselves  animated  by  the  Divine  Spirit, 
whose  inspiration  speaks  in  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures. That  this  may  be  the  high  aim  of  those 
to  whom  these  lectures  have  been  more  espe- 
cially addressed,  is  my  earnest  wish  and 
prayer. 


APPENDIX. 


The  Animal  Nature  of  Eozoon. 

A  S  much  unreasonable  scepticism  bas  been  ex- 
-*■*•  pressed  in  some  quarters  with  reference  to 
the  animal  nature  of  Eozoon  Canadense,  and  as 
the  author  is  responsible  for  naming  and  first  de- 
scribing it  as  a  Foraminifer,  it  may  be  well  here  to 
give  a  short  statement  of  the  leading  reasons  for 
regarding  it  as  a  fossil. 

(1.)  The  Laurentian  limestones  may  be  sup- 
posed, like  the  great  limestones  of  later  formations, 
to  have  been  accumulated  by  the  action  of  animal 
life  ;  and  the  probability  of  this  is  increased  by  their 
association  with  large  quantities  of  carbon  in  the 
form  of  graphite,  and  with  phosphates  and  metallic 
sulphates.  This  probability  has  been  well  argued 
by  Hunt  and  Dana  ;  and,  if  they  are  organic  lime- 
stones, they  might  be  expected  still  to  show  some 
traces  of  organic  remains. 

(2.)  The  specimens  of  Eozoon  occur  in  definitely 
limited  masses  of  various  sizes  and  in  certain  lay- 
ers of  the  limestone,  in  the  manner  in  which  the 


224  APPENDIX. 

fossil  Protozoans  known  as  Stromatoporse  occur  in 
the  Silurian  limestones ;  and  when  weathered  or 
polished  they  present  very  much  the  appearance 
of  those  Stromatoporse,  and  would  be  readily  taken 
by  any  collector  for  fossils  of  that  type. 

(3.)  When  examined  under  the  microscope,  they 
justify  this  presumption,  by  showing  in  their  cal- 
careous laminse  distinct  structures ;  namely,  a  proper 
wall  penetrated  by  microscopic  tubuli,  and  larger 
ramifying  canals,  penetrating  the  thicker  parts  of 
the  laminse.  These  are  precisely  the  structures 
found  in  the  larger  fossil  Foraminifera  of  the  Num- 
muline  group,  and  in  allied  modern  Foraminifera. 
Further,  the  Foraminifera  are  oceanic  animals  of 
very  simple  structure,  and  of  veiy  wide  if  not 
universal  distribution  in  geological  time  and  geo- 
graphically, and  therefore  among  the  most  likely 
creatures  to  be  found  in  the  oldest  rocks. ' 

(4.)  Fragments  having  similar  structures  are 
widely  distributed  in  the  Laurentian  limestones,  in 
addition  to  the  larger  masses  showing  the  general 
form. 

(5.)  The  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  ex- 
plain these  forms  by  reference  to  crystallization, 
concretionary  action,  and  pseudomorphism,  are 
negatived  by  the  fact  that  while  the  portions  of  the 
supposed  fossil  believed  to  have  been  its  skeleton 
are  nearly  always  in  the  state  of  carbonate  of  lime, 
the  filling  of  the  chambers  and  canals  supposed  to 
have  been  occupied  with  the  soft  substance  of  the 


APPENDIX.  225 

animal,  is  sometimes  serpentine,  sometimes  logan- 
ite,  sometimes  pyroxene,  and  sometimes  dolomite 
or  limestone.  This  variety  of  filling  strengthens 
the  conclusion  that  these  forms  were  originally 
calcareous  organisms  whose  cavities  have  been 
filled,  according  to  circumstances,  with  different 
kinds  of  mineral  matter. 

Dr.  Hunt  has  discussed,  in  his  "  Papers  on  Chem- 
istry and  Geology,"  the  chemical  conditions  under 
which  Eozoon  has  been  fossilized,  and  the  resem- 
blance of  these  to  those  which  occur  in  the  case  of 
other  and  undoubted  fossils  ;  and  his  reasoning,  as 
well  as  the  association  of  glauconite  or  greensand 
with  more  modern  foraminiferal  deposits,  and  the 
recent  results  of  the  "  Challenger "  dredgings  in 
the  South  Pacific,  even  establish  a  probabilit}^  that 
the  hydrous  silicates  filling  Eozoon,  as  well  as  those 
associated  with  organic  remains  in  other  formations, 
may  themselves  be  indirectly  accumulated  by  the 
influence  of  organic  beings  in  the  sea. 


B. 


The  Testimony  of  P alceontology  with  regard  to  Evo- 
lution. 

Professor  Nicholson,  of  the  Durham  University 
College  at  Newcastle,  England,  has  recently  commu- 
nicated to  the  Victoria  Institute  a  very  interesting 
paper  on  this  subject,  in  which   he  discusses  the 

15 


226  APPENDIX. 

explanations  given  by  Darwin  as  to  the  failure  of 
the  succession  of  fossil  animals  to  show  intermedi- 
ate links  connecting  species,  or  other  evidences  of 
derivation.  He  argues  that  the  breaks  in  the  geo- 
logical succession  of  animals  are  not  such  as  would 
be  expected  on  the  theory  of  the  derivation  of 
species  from  one  another ;  that  the  imperfections 
of  the  geological  record,  in  such  extensive  and 
continuous  series  as,  for  example,  the  Palseozoic 
Rocks  of  North  America,  are  not  so  great  as  to 
affect  their  testimony  to  the  succession  of  forms 
required,  had  this  existed.  That  the  sequence  of 
species  allied  to  each  other,  in  successive  forma- 
tions, is  not  such  as  to  indicate  a  genetic  connec- 
tion of  these  species,  except  in  the  case  of  such 
nearly  allied  specific  forms  as  are  probably  mere 
races  ;  that  the  coming  in  of  new  generic  types 
without  apparent  ancestry,  and  their  disappearance 
without  apparent  successors,  are  highly  unfavorable 
to  the  probability  of  derivation.  I  have  myself,  in 
my  report  on  the  "  Devonian  Plants  of  Canada," 
held  the  same  line  of  argument  as  regards  fossil 
plants,  and  have  shown  that  it  applies  also  to  the 
fossil  mollusks  and  other  invertebrates  of  the  Pleis- 
tocene period.  The  following  extracts  illustrate 
these  points.  The  first  is  Dr.  Nicholson's  sum- 
mary of  conclusions. 

"  1.  The  common  phenomenon  of  closely  allied  forms 
directly  succeeding  one  another  in  time,  renders  it  a 
reasonable  supposition  that  in  certain  zoological  groims 


APPENDIX.  227 

many  forms  so  distinct  as  to  have  been  described  by 
competent  observers  as  distinct  species  may  have  de- 
scended from  a  single  primitive  ancestral  type. 

"  2.  The  evidence  at  present  in  our  hands  is  opposed 
to  the  view  that  this  production  of  groups  of  allied 
forms  from  as  many  primitive  types  has  been  effected 
solely  or  mainly  by  "  natural  selection ;  "  though  it  is 
probable  that  this  agency  may  have  played  a  subordi- 
nate part  in  the  process. 

"  3.  New  types  of  life  are  constantly  making  their 
appearance,  without,  so  far  as  we  know,  being  preceded 
by  nny  closely  allied  types;  and  we  have,  therefore,  no 
positive  ground  for  believing  that  the  origin  of  such 
types  is  due  to  evolution  from  pre-existent  forms. 

"  4.  Variability  —  even  in  the  most  variable  groups 
—  has  never  been  shown  to  be  indefinite;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  appears  to  be  confined  within  certain  fixed 
limits  for  each  species ;  in  some  cases  wide,  in  others 
very  narrow.  Palaeontology  shows  no  instances  in 
which  we  can  positively  assert  that  the  variability  has 
been  unlimited ;  and,  though  we  meet  with  types  con- 
nected by  intermediate  links,  we  have  also  to  account 
for  the  existence  of  a  vast  number  of  isolated  forms, 
which,  so  far  as  our  present  knowledge  goes,  stand 
alone,  and  are  not  intimately  related  to  other  forms. 

"  5.  Even  where  we  find  types  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  strictly  transitional  or  intermediate  (as  Ilip- 
parion  in  its  relation  to  Anchitherium  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Equus  on  the  other  hand),  we  nevertheless  are 
confronted  with  forms  which  are  in  themselves  quite 
distinct,  and  which  could  not  be  confounded  with  the 
forms  which  they  serve  to  connect. 


228  APPENDIX. 

"6.  We  cannot  fairly  have  recourse  to  the  "  imper- 
fection of  the  record,"  as  satisfactorily  explaining  the 
absence  of  the  numerous  intermediate  types  required  by 
the  Darwinian  theory.  Such  imperfection  admittedly 
exists,  and  is  in  some  instances  almost  hopelessly  great. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have  had  in  other  instances  a 
fairly  comj)lete  series  of  successive  forms  preserved  to 
us.  This  is  the  case  with  the  Brachiopoda  and  Cepha- 
lopoda, for  example,  and  it  is  by  these  and  similarly 
well-preserved  groups  that  any  theory  of  the  origin  of 
species  will  have  to  be  tested. 

"  7.  The  examination  of  such  tolerably  complete 
groups  affords  support  to  the  belief  that  evolution  has 
operated  within  certain  limits,  and  lias  been  one  of  the 
causes  which  has  led  to  the  production  of  new  forms. 
Even  in  the  best-preserved  groups,  however,  we  meet 
constantly  with  isolated  types,  and  we  are  incessantly 
met  with  the  sudden  appearance  of  new  types.  An 
excellent  example  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  sudden 
appearance  of  new  species  of  Ammonites  in  the  Liassic 
rocks,  and  their  very  definite  range  and  complete  limi- 
tation to  known  zones.  The  study  of  such  groups 
would,  therefore,  lead  us  to  reject  any  exclusive  doc- 
trine of  evolution. 

"  8.  Whilst  certain  types  of  life  exhibit  a  striking 
variability,  others  exhibit  an  equally  striking  persistence 
and  immobility.  This  would  go  far  to  prove  that 
changes  in  external  conditions  have  little  to  do  with  the 
origin  of  variations  ;  since  some  forms  appear  to  vary 
even  under  approximately  constant  conditions,  whilst 
others  remain  unchanged  even  when  submitted  to  the 
most  varying  surroundings. 


APPENDIX.  229 

"  9.  In  some  instances  it  can  even  be  shown  that 
entire  groups  of  species  have  existed  without  change 
through  periods  which  we  may  justly  estimate  as  ex- 
ceedingly long.  Thus,  Principal  Dawson  affirms  that 
of  more  than  two  hundred  species  of  fossils,  chiefly 
Mollusca,  from  the  Post-pliocene  deposits  of  Canada, 
no  one  form  can  be  shown  to  have  varied  materially, 
during  the  long  period  which  separates  the  oldest 
boulder-clay  from  the  present  time,  and  in  spite  of 
notable  climatal  and  geographical  changes. 

"  10.  Upon  the  whole,  we  may  conclude  that  palae- 
ontology, in  its  present  stage  of  development,  offers  no 
strong  support,  or  is  directly  opposed,  to  the  special 
theory  of  the  origin  of  species  advocated  by  Mr.  Dar- 
win. On  the  other  hand,  many  known  palaeontological 
facts  would  lead  us  to  infer  that,  in  certain  cases  and 
within  certain  limits,  new  forms  have  been  produced  by 
the  modification  of  pre-existent  types.  Palaeontology, 
therefore,  would  appear  to  support,  at  any  rate,  a  par- 
tial doctrine  of  evolution. 

"11.  It  remains  for  future  consideration,  whether 
evolution  —  in  so  far  as  it  has  operated  at  all  —  has  not 
been  effected  by  means  of  inherent  tendencies  impressed 
upon  living  beings  by  the  Creator.  On  this  view,  evo- 
lution is  not  a  mere  disorderly  and  fortuitous  process, 
by  which  a  given  animal  or  plant  is  produced  out  of  a 
different  one  by  the  operation  of  chance  and  accidental 
surroundings  ;  but  it  becomes  an  orderly  process,  by 
which  certain  forms  of  life  have  from  the  beginning 
been  impressed  with  the  inherent  power  of  developing  in 
certain  fixed  directions,  and  thus  of  giving  rise  to  a 
definite  series  of  specific  types. 


230  APPENDIX. 

"  12.  It  further  remains  for  future  consideration, 
whether  this  orderly  process  of  evolution  has  always 
been  effected  in  a  gradual  manner,  and  whether  it  has 
not  been  occasionally  effected  by  changes  taking  place 
suddenly  and  per  saltum. 

"  13.  Finally,  it  remains  to  consider  within  what 
limits  evolution  has  operated,  and  what  supplementary 
causes  may  be  found  to  have  acted  in  the  production  of 
new  forms  of  life.  Or,  rather,  it  remains  to  consider 
whether  evolution  is  a  main,  or  only  a  subsidiary,  agency 
in  the  production  of  new  species." 

The  following  are  general  conclusions  on  the 
same  subject,  deduced  from  the  study  of  palaeozoic 
plants,  and  contained  in  my  "  Report  on  the  Devo- 
nian and  Upper  Silurian  Plants  of  Canada,  1871." 

"  1.  Botanists  proceed  on  the  assumption,  vindicated 
by  experience,  that,  within  the  period  of  human  obser- 
vation, species  have  not  materially  varied  or  passed 
into  each  other.  We  may  make,  for  practical  purposes, 
the  same  assumption  with  regard  to  any  given  geologi- 
cal period,  and  may  hold  that  for  each  such  period 
there  are  specific  types,  which,  for  the  time  at  least,  are 
invariable. 

"  2.  When  we  inquire  what  constitutes  a  good  species 
for  any  given  period,  we  have  reason  to  believe  that 
many  names  in  our  lists  represent  merely  varietal 
forms  or  erroneous  determinations.  This  is  the  case 
even  in  the  modern  flora ;  and  in  fossil  floras,  through 
the  poverty  of  specimens,  their  fragmentary  condition 
and  various  states  of  preservation,  it  is  still  more  likely 
to  occur.     Every  revision  of  any  group  of  fossils  detects 


APPENDIX.  231 

numerous  synonymes,  and  of  these  many  are  incapable 
of  detection  without  the  comparison  of  large  suites  of 
specimens. 

"  3.  We  may  select  from  the  flora  of  any  geological 
period  certain  forms,  which  I  shall  call  specific  types, 
which  may  for  such  period  be  regarded  as  unchanging. 
Having  settled  such  types,  we  may  compare  them  with 
similar  forms  in  other  periods ;  and  such  comparisons 
will  not  be  vitiated  by  the  uncertainty  which  arises 
from  the  comparison  of  so-called  species,  which  may,  in 
many  cases,  be  mere  varietal  forms,  as  distinguished 
from  specific  types.  Our  types  may  be  founded  on 
mere  fragments,  provided  that  these  are  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  prove  that  they  belong  to  distinct  forms  which 
cannot  pass  into  each  other,  at  least  within  the  limits  of 
one  geological  period. 

"4.  When  we  compare  the  specific  types  of  one 
period  with  those  of  another  immediately  precedent  or 
subsequent,  we  shall  find  that  some  continue  unchanged 
through  long  intervals  of  geological  time,  that  others 
are  represented  by  allied  forms  regarded  either  as 
varietal  or  specific,  and  as  derived  or  otherwise,  accord- 
ing to  the  view  which  we  may  entertain  as  to  the  per- 
manence of  species.  On  the  other  hand,  we  also  find 
new  types  not  rationally  deducible  on  any  theory  of 
derivation  from  those  known  in  other  periods.  Farther, 
in  comparing  the  types  of  a  poor  period  with  those  of 
one  rich  in  species  we  may  account  for  the  appearance 
of  new  types  in  the  latter  by  the  deficiency  of  informa- 
tion as  to  the  former ;  where  many  new  types  appear 
in  the  poorer  period  this  conclusion  seems  less  probable. 
For  example,  new  types  appearing  in  poor  formations, 


232  APPENDIX. 

like  the  Lower  Erian  and  Lower  Carboniferous,  have 
greater  significance  than  if  they  appeared  in  the  Middle 
Erian  or  in  the  Coal  Measures. 

"  5.  When  specific  types  disappear  without  any  known 
successors,  under  circumstances  in  which  it  seems  un- 
likely that  we  should  have  failed  to  discover  their  con- 
tinuance, we  may  fairly  assume  that  they  have  become 
extinct,  at  least  locally ;  and  where  the  field  of  obser- 
vation is  very  extensive,  as  in  the  great  coal  fields  of 
Europe  and  America,  we  may  esteem  such  extinction 
as  practically  general,  at  least  for  the  northern  hemi- 
sphere. When  many  specific  types  become  extinct 
together,  or  in  close  succession,  we  may  suppose  that 
such  extinction  resulted  from  physical  changes;  but 
where  single  types  disappear,  under  circumstances  in 
which  others  of  similar  habit  continue,  we  may  not 
unreasonably  conjecture  that,  as  Pictet  has  argued  in 
the  case  of  animals,  such  types  may  have  been  in  their 
own  nature  limited  in  duration,  and  may  have  died  out 
without  any  external  cause. 

"6.  With  regard  to  the  introduction  of  specific  types, 
we  have  not  as  yet  a  sufficient  amount  of  information. 
Even  if  we  freely  admit  that  ordinary  specific  forms,  as 
well  as  mere  varieties,  may  result  from  derivation,  this 
by  no  means  excludes  the  idea  of  primitive  specific 
types  originating  in  some  other  way.  Just  as  the 
chemist,  after  analyzing  all  compounds  and  ascertaining 
all  allotropic  forms,  arrives  at  length  at  certain  elements 
not  mutually  transmutable  or  derivable,  so  the  botanist 
and  zoologist  must  expect  sooner  or  later  to  arrive  at 
elementary  specific?  types,  which,  if  to  be  accounted  for 
at  all,    must  be  explained  on  some  principle  distinct 


APPENDIX.  233 

from  th.it  of  derivation.  The  position  of  many  modern 
biologists,  in  presence  of  this  question,  maybe  logically 
the  same  with  that  of  the  ancient  alchemists  with  refer- 
ence to  the  chemical  elements,  though  the  fallacy  in 
the  case  of  fossils  may  be  of  more  difficult  detection. 
Our  business  at  present,  in  the  pr.osecution  of  paleo- 
botany, is  to  discover,  if  possible,  what  are  elementary 
or  original  types,  and,  having  found  these,  to  inquire  as 
to  the  law  of  their  creation." 

The  following  review  of  the  same  subject  is 
based  on  the  new  geological  facts  recently  ob- 
tained in  the  Cretaceous  and  Tertiary  beds  of 
Western  America,  and  is  contained  in  my  Annual 
Address  as  President  of  the  Natural  History  Society 
of  Montreal,  May,  1874  :  — 

"Simple  though  the  structure  of  these  Western 
regions  is,  it  has  already  given  rise  to  controversies, 
more  especially  with  reference  to  the  age  of  the  plants 
and  animals  whose  remains  have  been  found  in  these 
formations  south  of  the  United  States  boundary.  In 
looking  over  these  controversies,  I  am  inclined  in  the 
first  place  to  believe  that  we  have  in  the  West  a  grad- 
ual passage  from  the  Cretaceous  to  the  Tertiary  beds, 
and  that  these  last  may  scarcely  admit  of  a  definite 
division  into  Eocene  and  Miocene.  We  may  thus  have 
in  these  regions  the  means  of  bridging  over  what  has 
been  one  of  the  widest  gaps  in  the  earth's  history,  and 
of  repairing  one  of  the  greatest  imperfections  in  the 
geological  record. 

"Physically,  the  change  from  the  Cretaceous  to  the 
Tertiary  was  one  of  continental  elevation,  —  drying  up 


234  APPENDIX. 

the  oceanic  waters  in  which  the  marine  animals  of  the 
Cretaceous  lived,  and  affording  constantly  increasing 
scope  for  land  animals  and  plants.  Thus  it  must  have 
happened  that  the  marine  Cretaceous  animals  disap- 
peared first  from  the  high  lands  and  lingered  longest  in 
the  valleys,  while  the  life  of  the  Tertiary  came  on  first 
in  the  hills  and  was  more  tardily  introduced  on  the 
plains.  Hence  it  has  arisen  that  many  beds  which 
Meek  and  Cope  regard  as  Cretaceous  on  the  evidence 
of  animal  fossils,  Newberry  and  Lesquereux  regard  as 
Tertiary  on  the  evidence  of  fossil  plants.  This  depends 
on  the  general  law  that  in  times  of  continental  eleva- 
tion newer  productions  of  the  land  are  mixed  with 
more  antique  inhabitants  of  the  sea ;  while  on  the  con- 
trary in  times  of  subsidence  older  land  creatures  are 
liable  to  be  mixed  with  newer  products  of  the  sea. 
Thus,  in  Vancouver's  Island,  plants  which  Heer  at 
first  regarded  as  Miocene,  have  been  washed  down  into 
waters  in  which  Cretaceous  shell-fishes  still  swarmed. 
Thus  Cope  maintains  that  the  lignite-bearing  or  Fort 
Union  group  contains  remains  of  Cretaceous  reptiles, 
while  to  the  fossil  botanist  its  plants  appear  to  be 
unquestionably  Tertiary.  Hence  also  we  are  told  that 
the  skeleton  of  a  Cretaceous  Dinosaur  has  been  found 
stuffed  with  leaves  which  Les-quereux  regards  as  Eocene. 
At  first  these  apparent  anachronisms  seem  puzzling,  and 
they  interfere  much  with  arbitrary  classifications.  Still 
they  are  perfectly  natural,  and  to  be  expected  where  a 
true  geological  transition  occurs.  They  afford,  more- 
over, an  opportunity  of  settling  the  question  whether 
the  introduction  of  living  things  is  a  slow  and  gradual 
evolution  of  new  types  by  descent  with  modification,  or 


APPENDIX.  235 

whether,  according  to  the  law  so  ably  illustrated  by 
Barrande  in  the  case  of  the  Cephalopods  and  Trilobites, 
new  forms  are  introduced  abundantly  and  in  perfection 
at  once.  The  physical  change  was  apparently  of  the 
most  gradual  character.  Was  it  so  with  the  organic 
change  ?  That  it  was  not  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that 
both  Dr.  Asa  Gray  and  Mr.  Cope,  who  try  to  press  this 
transition  into  the  service  of  evolution,  are  obliged  in 
the  last  resort  to  admit  that  the  new  flora  and  fauna 
must  have  migrated  into  the  region  from  some  other 
place.  Gray  seems  to  think  that  the  plants  came  from 
the  north,  which  other  considerations  render  not  im- 
probable. Cope  supposes  the  mammals  came  from  the 
south.  Neither  seems  to  consider  that  if  giant  Sequoias 
and  Dicotyledonous  trees  and  large  herbivorous  mamma- 
lia arose  in  the  Cretaceous  or  early  Tertiary,  and  have 
continued  substantially  unimproved  ever  since,  they 
must  have  existed  somewhere  for  periods  far  greater 
than  that  which  intervenes  between  the  Cretaceous  and 
the  present,  in  order  to  give  them  time  to  be  evolved 
from  inferior  types ;  and  that  we  thus  only  push  back 
the  difficulty  of  their  origin,  with  the  additional  disad- 
vantage of  having  to  admit  a  most  portentous  and  fatal 
imperfection  in  our  geological  record. 

"The  actual  facts  are  these.  The  flora  of  modern  type 
comes  into  being  in  the  Cretaceous  of  the  West  without 
any  known  ancestors,  and  it  extends  with  so  little 
change  to  our  time  that  some  of  the  Cretaceous  species 
are  probably  only  varietally  distinct  from  those  now 
living.  On  the  other  hand  the  previous  Jurassic  flora 
had  died  out  apparently  without  successors.  In  like 
manner  the    Cretaceous   Dinosaurs   and    Cephalopods 


236  APPENDIX. 

disappear  without  progeny,  though  one  knows  no  rea- 
son why  they  might  not  still  live  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 
The  Eocene  mammals  make  their  appearance  in  a  like 
mysterious  way.  This  is  precisely  what  we  should 
expect  if  groups  of  species  are  introduced  at  once  by 
some  creative  process.  It  can  be  explained  on  the 
theory  of  evolution,  only  by  taking  for  granted  all  that 
ought  to  be  proved,  and  imagining  series  of  causes  and 
effects  of  which  no  trace  remains  in  the  record. 

"The  problems  for  solution  are,  however,  much  more 
complicated  than  the  derivationists  seem  to  suppose. 
Let  us  illustrate  this  by  the  plants.  The  Cretaceous 
flora  of  North  America  is  in  its  general  type  similar  to 
that  of  the  Western  and  Southern  part  of  the  continent 
at  present.  It  is  also  so  like  that  of  the  Miocene  of 
Europe  that  they  have  been  supposed  to  be  identical. 
In  Europe,  however,  the  Cretaceous  and  Eocene  floras, 
though  with  some  American  forms,  have  a  different 
aspect,  more  akin  to  that  of  floras  of  the  Southern  Hem- 
isphere. v  There  have  therefore  been  more  fluctuations 
in  Europe  than  in  America,  where  an  identical  group  of 
genera  seems  to  have  continued  from  the  Cretaceous 
until  now.  Nay,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  some 
of  the  oldest  of  these  species  are  not  more  than  varie- 
tally  distinct  from  their  modern  successors.  Some  that 
can  be  traced  very  far  back  are  absolutely  identical  with 
modern  forms.  For  example,  I  have  seen  specimens  of 
a  fern  collected  by  Dr.  Newberry  from  the  Fort-Union 
group  of  the  Western  States,  one  of  those  groups  dis- 
puted as  of  Cretaceous  or  Tertiary  date,  which  is  abso- 
lutely identical  with  a  fern  found  by  Mr.  G.  M.  Dawson 
in  the  Lignite  Tertiary  of  Manitoba,   and  also  with 


APPENDIX.  287 

specimens  described  by  the  Duke  of  Argyle  from  the 
Miocene  plant  beds  of  Mull.  Further,  it  is  undoubtedly 
our  common  Canadian  sensitive  fern,  —  Onoclea  sensi- 
bilis.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  this  is 
merely  one  example  out  of  many,  of  plants  that  were 
once  spread  over  Europe  and  America,  and  have  come 
down  to  us  unmodified  throughout  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  Tertiary  ages.  But  while  this  is  the  case,  some 
species  have  disappeared  without  known  successors,  and 
others  have  come  in  without  known  predecessors.  Nay, 
whole  floras  have  come  in  without  known  origin.  Since 
the  Miocene  age  the  great  Arctic  flora  has  spread  itself 
all  around  the  globe,  the  distinctive  flora  of  North  East- 
ern America  and  that  of  Europe  have  made  their  ap- 
pearance, and  the  great  Miocene  flora,  once  almost 
universal  in  the  Northern  Hemisphere,  has  as  a  whole 
been  restricted  to  a  narrow  area  in  Western  and  warm 
temperate  North  America.  Even  if  with  Gray,  in  his 
address  of  two  years  ago  before  the  American  Associa- 
tion, we  are  to  take  for  granted  that  the  giant  Pines 
(Sequoias)  of  California  are  modified  descendants  of 
those  which  flourished  all  over  America  and  Europe  in 
the  Miocene,  Eocene,  and  Cretaceous,  we  have  in  these 
merely  an  exceptional  case  to  set  against  the  broad 
general  facts.  Even  this  exception  fails  of  evolutionary 
significance,  when  we  consider  that  the  two  species  of 
Sequoia  which  have  been  taken  as  special  examples 
are  at  best  merely  survivors  of  many  or  several  species 
known  in  the  Cretaceous  and  Tertiary.  The  process  of 
selection  here  has  been  merely  the  dropping  out  of  sev- 
eral species  which  are  of  unknown  origin,  and  the  sur- 
vival in  a  very  limited  area  of  two,  which  are  even  now 


238  APPENDIX. 

probably  verging  on  extinction.  In  other  words,  the 
two  extant  species  of  Sequoia  may  have  continued 
unchanged  except  varietally  from  Mesozoic  times,  and 
other  species  existed  then  and  since  which  have  disap- 
peared ;  but  as  to  how  any  of  them  began  to  exist  we 
know  nothing,  except  that,  for  some  mysterious  reason, 
there  were  more  numerous  and  far  more  widely  dis- 
tributed species  in  the  early  days  of  the  group  than  now. 
This  is  precisely  Barrande's  conclusion  as  to  the  Palaeo- 
zoic Trilobites  and  Cephalopods,  and  my  own  conclu- 
sion as  to  the  Devonian  and  Carboniferous  plants.  The 
record  tells  of  rapid  culmination  ;  and  then  not  evolu- 
tion, but  elimination  by  the  struggle  for  existence. 

"  In  the  mean  time  the  record  of  the  rocks  is  thus  decid- 
edly against  evolutionists  in  the  particular  points  to 
which  I  have  above  adverted,  more  especially  in  the 
abrupt  appearance  of  new  forms  under  several  specific 
types  and  without  apparent  predecessors.  They  should 
direct  their  .attention  in  this  connection  to  the  appear- 
ance of  Foraminifera  in  the  Laurentian;  of  Sponges, 
Brachiopods,  Trilobites,  Phyllopods,  Crinoids,  and  Ce- 
phalopods in  the  older  Palaeozoic ;  of  Land  Snails,  Milli- 
pedes, Insects,  Fishes,  Labyrinthodonts,  Acrogens  and 
Gymnosperms  in  the  middle  and  later  Palaeozoic ;  of 
Belemnites,  Dinosaurs,  Ornithosaurs,  and  other  Reptiles, 
and  of  Marsupial  Mammals  and  Dicotyledonous  trees 
in  the  Mesozoic ;  of  Placental  Mammals  and  Man  in  the 
Tertiary  and  Modern.  When  they  shall  have  shown 
the  gradations  by  which  these,  out  of  the  many  cases 
which  may  be  cited,  have  been  introduced,  and  this 
without  assuming  an  imperfection  in  the  record  incred- 
ible in  itself  and  destructive  of  its  value  as  a  history  of 


APPENDIX.  239 

the  earth,  they  may  be  in  a  position  to  rebuke  us  for 
our  unbelief. 

"  But  it  may  be  asked :  Have  we  no  positive  doc- 
trine  as  to  the  introduction  of  species  ?  In  answer  I 
would  say  that  it  is  conceivable  that  the  origin  of  spe- 
cies may  be  one  of  those  ultimate  facts  beyond  which 
science  by  its  own  legitimate  methods  cannot  pass,  and 
that  all  we  can  hope  for  is  to  know  something  of  the 
modes  of  action  of  the  creative  force  and  of  the  modifi- 
cations of  which  species  when  introduced  are  suscepti- 
ble. In  any  case  it  is  by  searching  for  these  latter 
truths  that  we  may  hope  successfully  to  approach  the 
great  mystery  of  the  origin  of  life.  It  is  with  reference 
to  these  truths  also  that  the  discussion  of  modern  the- 
ories of  derivation  has  been  chiefly  valuable ;  and,  in  so 
far  as  established,  they  will  remain  as  substantial  results 
after  these  theories  have  been  exploded.  Among  such 
truths  I  may  mention  the  following:  We  have  learned 
that  in  geological  time  species  tend  to  arise  in  groups 
of  like  forms,  perhaps  in  many  parts  of  the  world  at 
once;  so  that  genera  and  families  culminate  rapidly, 
then  become  stationary  or  slowly  descend,  and  become 
restricted  in  number  of  species  and  in  range.  We  have 
learned  that  in  like  manner  each  specific  type  has  ca- 
pacities for  the  production  of  varietal  and  race  forms 
which  are  usually  exercised  to  the  utmost  in  the  early 
stages  of  its  existence,  and  then  remain  fixed,  or  disap- 
pear and  re-appear  as  circumstances  may  arise,  and 
finally  the  races  fall  off  one  by  one  as  it  approaches 
extinction.  Many  of  these  races  and  varieties  consti- 
tute conventional  species  as  distinguished  from  natural 
species;  and,  in  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  descent 


240  APPENDIX. 

with  modification  occurs,  though  under  very  complex 
laws,  and  admitting  of  retrogression  just  as  much  as  of 
advance.  We  have  also  learned  that  in  the  progress  of 
the  earth's  history  embryonic,  generalized,  and  com- 
posite types  take  precedence  in  time  of  more  specialized 
types,  and  thus  that  higher  forms  of  low  types  precede 
higher  types,  and  are  often  replaced  by  them.  We 
are  further,  as  the  relation  of  varieties  and  species  is 
investigated  and  their  extension  in  time  traced,  becom- 
ing more  and  more  convinced  of  the  marvellous  perma- 
nence of  specific  types,  and  of  their  powers  of  almost 
indefinite  propagation  in  time.  Lastly,  vast  stores  of 
facts  are  being  accumulated  as  to  the  migration  of  spe- 
cies from  one  area  to  another,  and  as  to  the  connection 
of  the  great  secular  elevations  and  subsidences  of  conti- 
nents with  their  introduction  and  extinction.  All  these 
are  substantial  gains  to  science,  and  the  time  is  at 
hand  when  they  will  lead  to  more  stable  theories  of 
the  history  of  life  on  the  earth  than  those  now  cur- 
rent." 

In  the  mean  time  it  is  daily  becoming  more  and 
more  evident  that  the  brilliant  fabric  of  speculation 
erected  by  Darwin  can  scarcely  sustain  its  own 
weight,  still  less  afford  any  solid  ground  on  which 
to  build  a  satisfactory  theory  of  the  origin  of  spe- 
cies :  and  that  we  must  be  prepared  to  abandon 
the  enticing  but  unsubstantial  foundation  of  anal- 
ogy and  go  back  to  our  old  though  slow  mode  of 
painful  collection  of  facts  and  inductive  reasoning 
thereon,  if  we  desire  in  any  degree  to  obtain  a 
solution  of  the  mystery  of  life. 


APPENDIX.  241 

I  cannot  better  close  this  note  than  with  the  tes- 
timony of  the  lamented  Agassiz  in  his  latest  paper 
on  the  hypothesis  of  evolution.  "  As  a  palaeontol- 
ogist I  have  from  the  beginning  stood  aloof  from 
this  new  theor}^  of  transmutation  now  so  widely 
admitted  by  the  scientific  world.  Its  doctrines  in 
fact  contradict  what  the  animal  forms  buried  in  the 
rocky  strata  of  our  earth  tell  us  of  their  own  intro- 
duction and  succession  on  the  surface  of  the  globe." 


Other  Views  as  to  the  Antiquity  of  Prehistoric  Man. 

In  the  text  I  have  not  entered  into  the  discus- 
sion of  some  questions  which  have  been  raised  as 
to  Paleeocosmic  man,  and  which  may  properly  be 
noticed  here. 

Professor  Boyd  Dawkins  of  Owen's  College, 
Manchester,  is  one  of  the  most  zealous  and  suc- 
cessful students  of  the  Pleistocene  and  Modern 
deposits  of  England,  and  has  given  many  of  his 
results  and  a  summary  of  the  general  state  of  the 
subject  in  his  recent  work  entitled  "  Cave  Hunt- 
ing." He  regards  the  skulls  and  skeletons  of 
Engis,  Cro-magnon,  and  Mentone  as  of  uncertain 
age,  and  refuses  to  admit  their  "  Palaeolithic  "  or 
Palseocosmic  date.  In  this  he  differs  from  the 
many  able  observers  who  have  studied  the  actual 
relations  of  these  remains.     His  principal  reasons 

16 


242  APPENDIX. 

for  his  scepticism  are  the  following:  First,  the 
possibility  that  these  bones  may  have  accidentally 
or  by  interment  at  a  later  date  become  mixed  with 
the  remains  of  the  Mammoth  age ;  secondly,  the 
improbability  of  men  of  so  high  a  t}^pe  physically 
having  existed  at  so  early  a  period ;  and  thirdly, 
the  resemblance  of  the  implements,  &c,  of  the  Pa- 
leolithic age  to  those  of  the  Esquimaux,  whom  he 
supposes  to  be  the  modern  representatives  of  these 
ancient  people. 

To  these  objections  it  may  be  answered:  (1.) 
That,  but  for  the  foregone  conclusion  that  the 
oldest  men  were  of  rude  and  brutal  type,  and  the 
higher  character  of  these  remains,  such  doubts 
would  probably  not  have  occurred  to  any  one. 
(2.)  That  the  evidence  collected  by  Schmerling, 
Dupont,  Lartet,  Riviere,  and  others  seems  sufficient 
to  prove  the  age  of  the  remains,  more  especially  in 
the  case  of  the  Engis  skull  and  the  skeleton  of 
Mentone,  while  facts  stated  by  Dawkins  himself  as 
to  the  condition  of  the  ivory  objects  found  with  the 
Paviland  skeleton  in  England  seem  to  confirm  the 
testimony  of  the  continental  observers.  (3.)  All 
these  skeletons  so  closely  resemble  each  other  as  to 
prove  identity  of  race,  and  they  differ  from  any  of 
the  Neocosmic  or  historic  races  that  have  succeeded 
them.  (4.)  If  we  refuse  to  accept  these  as  remains 
of  Palseocosmic  men,  we  have  then  the  remarkable 
anomaly  of  the  existence  of  great  quantities  of 
implements  and  other  relics  of  this  age   without 


APPENDIX.  243 

any  certain  osseous  debris  of  the  people  to  whom 
they  have  belonged.  (5.)  The  carving  on  the 
bone  and  ivory  objects  found  in  the  French  "  Pal- 
aeolithic "  caves  bespeaks  a  people  of  more  than 
average  taste  and  intelligence,  while  the  character 
of  the  Palaeolithic  implements  generally  would 
indicate  a  people  of  great  muscular  power  and 
rude  habits,  and  in  both  these  respects  the  skulls 
and  skeletons  found  correspond  with  the  other 
remains.  (6.)  The  resemblance  between  the  Pal- 
aeolithic weapons  and  those  of  the  Esquimaux  does 
not  necessarily  imply  a  precise  accordance  in  the 
other  characteristics  of  the  two  peoples.  Further, 
the  Esquimaux  are  long-headed,  and  are  allied  by 
language  and  customs  to  the  Kutchin  and  other 
races  of  North  America,  who  are  of  good  bodily 
development ;  so  that  the  imagined  resemblance  to 
them  would  not  necessarily  militate  against  the 
stature  or  dolichocephalism  of  the  European  abo- 
rigines. 

Dawkins  supposes  a  long  interval  of  time  be- 
tween the  Neolithic  or  Neocosmic  age  and  the 
Palaeolithic.  His  arguments  for  this,  based  on 
extinction  of  animals,  erosion  of  valleys  and  de- 
posits in  caves,  have  already  been  discussed  in  the 
text,  and  are  of  no  real  geological  force.  He 
includes  the  whole  period  preceding  the  Neocos- 
mic age  under  the  term  Pleistocene,  and  divides 
this  into  three  subordinate  periods :  (1.)  The  late 
Pleistocene,  in  which  are  included  both  the  Reiu- 


244  APPENDIX. 

deer  and  Mammoth  periods  of  the  French  geolo- 
gists, and  which  he  truly  says  cannot  be  separated 
by  animal  remains,  though  they  are  separated  by  the 
occurrence  of  a  subsidence  of  the  land.  This  late 
Pleistocene  corresponds,  in  so  far  as  man  is  con- 
cerned, with  our  Palseocosmic  age.  (2.)  The  mid- 
dle Pleistocene,  which  corresponds  with  the  early 
Glacial  and  later  Pre-glacial  periods,  and  in  which 
Europe  was  inhabited  by  many  species  of  mammalia 
which  had  disappeared  in  the  Post-glacial  or  late 
Pleistocene.  Dawkins  refers  the  earliest  traces  of 
man  to  this  age,  but  on  no  better  grounds  than  the 
flint  flakes  of  the  Crayford  clay  and  Brixham 
cave,  —  which  are  probably  natural,  —  and  the 
occurrence  of  certain  boulders  (supposed,  on  alto- 
gether insufficient  evidence,  to  have  been  deposited 
by  a  glacier),  in  connection  with  a  fragment  of  bone, 
believed  to  be  human,  in  the  Victoria  cave  at  Settle 
in  Yorkshire.  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  set 
of  opinion  in  England  at  present,  and  the  compul- 
sion which  it  imposes  on  honest  workers,  that  Daw- 
kins  should  hold  the  Engis  skull  to  be  of  uncertain 
age,  while  he  trusts  to  such  evidences  as  these. 

It  is  not  pretended  that  any  very  definite  limits 
can  be  assigned  to  these  subdivisions  of  the  Pleisto- 
cene age  ;  and  the  physical  evidence  seems  to  show 
that  the  late  Pleistocene  should  be  divided  into 
two  portions  by  a  subsidence  which  inaugurates 
the  Neocosmic  or  Modern  age,  and  that  the  middle 
Pleistocene  is  the  time  of  re-elevation  from   the 


APPENDIX.  245 

great  subsidence  of  the  early  Pleistocene,  which 
subsidence  was  gradual  and  closed  the  Pliocene 
age.  This,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown,  is  the  only 
view  which  enables  us  to  correlate  the  deposits  of 
these  ages  on  the  two  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

Geikie,  in  his  work %i  The  great  Ice  Age,"  —  which 
is  really  an  extended  plea  for  the  views  of  the  ex- 
treme glacialists,  which  are  now  beginning  to  give 
place  to  more  common-sense  conclusions,  —  believes 
man  to  have  been  Pre-glacial  on  somewhat  differ- 
ent grounds.  Holding  the  Pliocene  to  have  been 
followed  by  a  time  of  intense  cold  and  by  a  "  con- 
tinental ice  cap,"  he  supposes  a  warm  interval  in 
which  man  made  his  appearance  in  Europe,  suc- 
ceeded by  a  second  glacial  age  in  which  man  was 
exterminated  or  expelled,  to  return  with  the  mod- 
ern animals.  This  theory  depends  altogether  on 
the  requirements  of  the  hypothesis  of  land  glacia- 
tion  in  the  temperate  latitudes,  and  obliges  the 
ingenious  author  to  separate  from  each  other  the 
undoubtedly  contemporary  northern  and  southern 
forms  of  animals  of  the  proper  Post-glacial  age,  in 
which  he  intercalates  his  second  period  of  glacia- 
tion.  On  this  last  point  I  have  elsewhere  made 
the  following  remarks  :  *  — 

"  It  is  most  unsafe  to  reason  as  to  the  climate  required 
by  extinct  mammalia,  especially  in  contravention  of  the 
evidence  of  contemporaneous  existence  afforded  by  the 

*  "Leisure  Hour,"  Nov.,  1874. 


246  APPENDIX. 

occurrence  of  their  remains.  Even  the  hippopotamus 
of  the  English  caves  and  gravels  may  have  been  pro- 
tected by  a  coating  of  fat  like  the  walrus.  The  elevated 
land  of  Post-glacial  Europe,  if  it  were  clothed  with  for- 
ests, would  have  precisely  the  climatal  properties  which 
we  know  in  America  and  Asia  favor  the  intermixture 
of  the  animals  of  different  latitudes.  Again,  that  so- 
called  Palaeolithic  implements  are  not  found  over  the 
boulder  deposits  of  North  Britain  is  merely  a  conse- 
quence of  the  fact  that  they  are  in  the  main  limited  to 
the  chalk  and  flint  districts,  a  circumstance  which,  as 
already  hinted,  throws  grave  doubts  on  their  being  even 
so  ancient  as  usually  supposed,  and  gives  them  a  local 
rather  than  a  chronological  character.  Further,  in 
Eastern  America  we  know  that  the  higher  elevation  of 
the  land  immediately  preceding  the  Modern  period  was 
accompanied  by  a  milder  climate  than  that  which  now 
prevails,  and  that  this  occurred  after  the  close  of  the 
Glacial  period.  I  must,  therefore,  reject  this  supposed 
later  Glacial  age  intervening  between  Palaeolithic  and 
Modern  man,  and  maintain  that  there  is  no  proof  of  the 
existence  of  man  earlier  than  the  close  of  the  Glacial 
age  proper." 

In  opposition  to  these  arrangements  of  Geikie 
and  Dawkins,  I  may  place  the  following  tabular 
view  of  the  succession  in  Great  Britain,  condensed 
from  the  summary  given  in  Ly ell's  "  Antiquity  of 
Man,"  pp.  331  et  seq. :  — 


APPENDIX. 


247 


Continental  Period.   Land  el 
evated.     Climate  mild 


Newer  Pliocene. 
indel-  |  Cromer  Forest  bed. 


Post-pliocene  or  Pleistocene. 


Period  of  Submergence. 
Land  depressed  1,000  feet  or 
more.  Climate  cold,  and  much 
floating  ice 

Second  Continental  Period. 
Land  again  elevated  until  much 
higher  than  at  present,  and 
British  Islands  united  to  main 
land.  Climate  continental,  and 
surface  densely  wooded  .     .     . 


Marine  Post-pliocene  drift. 


Passage  of  German  flora  into 
England.  Mammoth  and 
Megaceros  and  Cave  Bear, 
etc.,  living  in  Europe.  Ad- 
vent of  Palaeocosmic  Man. 


Modern. 


Period  of  depression  and  os- 
cillation, ending  in  re-elevation, 
and  present  geographical  condi- 
tion of  Europe 


Modern  or  Historic  age. 
slowly  subsiding .     .     . 


Land 


Age  of  Amiens  gravels  and 
raised  beaches,  and  close  of 
Palgeocosmic  and  beginning 
of  Neocosmic  age.  Men  sub- 
jected to  great  diminution  of 
numbers  by  floods  and  subsi- 
dences. Several  species  of 
mammals  become  extinct. 
Stone  age  of  antiquaries. 

Bronze  and  Iron  ages  of  anti- 
quaries. 


This  I  believe  expresses  as  nearly  as  possible  the 
latest  ascertained  results  of  geological  inquiry,  and 
with  local  modifications  it  is  applicable  to  the 
whole  Northern  Hemisphere. 

I  add  here  two  facts  which  show  how  dangerous 
it  is  to  reason,  as  to  the  age  of  superficial  deposits, 
on  imperfect  data.  It  has  been  constantly  asserted 
that  the  thick  crusts  of  stalagmite  overlying  cave 
deposits  are  a  proof  of  great  antiquity.     But  Daw- 


248  APPENDIX. 

kins  has  shown  that  the  stalagmite  in  the  cave  of 
Ingieborough  is  growing  at  the  rate  of  a  quarter  of 
an  inch  per  annum,  and  still  more  rapid  deposition 
has  been  shown  in  the  case  of  waters  flowing  from 
mines.  Hence,  as  Dawkins  well  remarks,  the 
thick  beds  of  stalagmite  in  Kent's  Hole  and  other 
caves,  may  have  accumulated  in  less  than  one 
thousand  years.  Yet  this  stalagmite  accumulation 
is  one  argument,  if  not  the  sole  argument,  for  the 
great  antiquity  of  the  implements  found  in  this 
cave,  and  described  in  the  Reports  of  the  British 
Association  Committee.  Stalagmite  crusts  are  a 
warrant  in  so  far  for  the  undisturbed  condition  of 
the  deposits  found  under  them,  but  not  for  their 
antiquity.  Much  of  the  evidence  for  the  great 
antiquity  of  man  has  been  derived  from  the  occur- 
rence of  flint  flakes  in  the  deposits  of  caves ;  but 
there  is  good  ground  for  the  suspicion  that  many 
of  these  flakes  are  natural  and  have  not  been  used 
by  man.  The  Brixham  cave,  for  example,  is  con- 
stantly referred  to  as  having  afforded  evidence  of 
man  in  its  lowest  beds,  in  the  form  of  flint  "  knives  " 
or  "  implements "  found  by  explorations  under- 
taken under  the  auspices  of  the  Royal  Society. 
Yet  the  actual  fact  appears  to  be  that  the  objects 
found  were  merely  chips  of  flint,  without  any  clear 
evidence  of  human  use  ;  that  they  occurred  mixed 
with  gravel ;  and  that  similar  flakes,  mixed  with 
similar  gravel,  form  a  constituent  of  the  ordinary 
surface  deposits  in  the  vicinity  of  the  cave.     Fur- 


APPENDIX.  249 

ther,  defective  observations  at  one  time  led  to  the 
inference  that  the  valley  near  the  cave  must  have 
been  excavated  to  a  depth  of  seventy  feet  since 
the  gravel  found  with  these  supposed  knives  was 
swept  into  it,  whereas  it  now  appears  that  the 
material  of  similar  gravel  is  found  on  the  same  side 
with  the  cave.  These  facts  are  brought  out  in  a 
recent  paper  by  Mr.  Whitley,*  and  they  contain  an 
emphatic  warning  to  geologists  against  committing 
themselves  to  doubtful  conclusions  of  this  kind, 
fitted  not  only  to  propagate  error,  but  to  bring  geo- 
logical evidence  itself  into  disrepute. 

Geologists  were  perhaps  at  one  time  too  sceptical 
as  to  evidences  of  prehistoric  man  ;  but  the  heed- 
lessness with  which  some  of  them  have  been  run- 
ning into  the  opposite  extreme  is  on  all  accounts 
greatly  to  be  deprecated.  Several  causes  have  I 
think  contributed  to  this  result.  One  is  the  ten- 
dency to  apply  by  a  false  analogy  the  evidence  as 
to  the  great  antiquity  of  the  older  formations  to 
the  human  period.  Another  is  the  influence  of 
the  evolutionist  philosophy,  which  requires  almost 
unlimited  time  for  the  process  of  development,  and 
besides  has  been  training  geologists  to  its  own 
loose  modes  of  argument  from  analogy  and  disre- 
gard of  facts  and  induction.  A  third,  I  fear,  is  the 
straining  after  sensationalism  and  premature  and 
startling  generalizations,  which  has  been  one  of 
the  evil  effects  of  the  rapid  extension  of  scientific 

*  "  Transactions  Victoria  Institute,  1874." 


250  APPENDIX. 

discover}?-,  and  of  the  struggle  for  existence  on  the 
part  of  scientific  writers.  These  causes  are  proba- 
bly temporary,  and  facts  are  accumulating  which 
at  no  distant  time  will  place  our  knowledge  of  this 
subject  on  a  more  solid  basis. 


D. 

TJie  Deluge. 

A  separate  lecture  might  well  have  been  devoted 
to  this  subject,  which  I  have,  however,  already 
noticed  in  "  Archaia."  I  may  merely  state  here : 
(1.)  That  there  are  some  grounds  for  anticipating 
that  this  event  may  yet  be  identified  with  the  Post- 
glacial or  modern  subsidence  which  geology  indi- 
cates, in  which  case  Paleeocosmic  man  would 
correspond  to  Antediluvian  man.  (2.)  That  the 
Scriptural  deluge  was  probably  universal  only  in 
the  sense  of  being  co-extensive  with  the  abodes  of 
Antediluvian  man.  (3.)  That  the  terms  of  the 
Scripture  record  in  reference  to  the  animals  said  to 
have  been  preserved  and  destroyed,  give  reason  to 
believe  that  some  species  were  at  least  locally  ren- 
dered extinct  by  the  deluge.  Five  distinct  lists 
are  given,  a  comparison  of  which  shows  that  only 
certain  specified  species  were  to  be  taken  into  the 
ark.  (4.)  The  structure  of  the  narrative  shows 
that  it  is  to  be  taken  as  the  report  of  an  eye-witness," 
—  a  sort  of  "  log  "  of  the  deluge,  —  and  is  to  be 


APPENDIX.  251 

understood  in  this  sense ;  a  view  corroborated  by 
the  structure  of  the  Chaldean  version,  which  has 
been  deciphered  on  the  clay  tablets  of  Nineveh. 


E. 


Professor  Pritehard  on  Science  and  Religion. 

In  an  address  before  the  Church  Congress  at 
Brighton,  Professor  Pritehard,  of  Oxford,  has 
given  a  summary  of  the  actual  position  of  science 
with  reference  to  religion,  as  it  appears  in  Eng- 
land. He  has  no  objection  to  evolution  if  actually 
proved,  and  if  considered  as  a  mode  of  operation 
of  the  Creator ;  and  he  quotes  Bishop  Butler's 
saying,  that,  "  an  intelligent  Author  of  nature 
being  supposed,  it  makes  no  alteration  in  the  mat- 
ter before  us  whether  he  acts  in  nature  every 
moment,  or  at  once  contrived  and  executed  his 
own  part  in  the  plan  of  the  world."  He  shows, 
however,  that  evolution,  as  maintained  by  Spencer 
and  Darwin,  is  not  really  proved  by  science  ;  and 
he  ably  argues  for  design  from  the  structure  of  the 
eye,  and  urges  against  Darwin  the  arguments  of 
his  ally  Wallace  against  the  derivation  of  man 
from  lower  animals.  These  arguments  I  have  not 
noticed  in  this  work,  because  Wallace's  previous 
admissions  as  to  the  origin  of  the  lower  animals 
weaken  very  much  their  force,  though  they  are 
valuable  as  showing   that  the   gap   between   the 


252  APPENDIX. 

higher  nature   of  man  and  the  lower  animals  is 
more  difficult  to  bridge  over  than  any  other. 

Pritcharcl  makes  a  good  point  in  his  own  special 
field,  by  bringing  out,  in  opposition  to  the  idea  of 
all  things  being  potentially  contained  in  atoms, 
the  views  of  Herschel  and  Maxwell,  as  follows  :  — 

"  Our  knowledge  of  these  atomic  forces,  so  far  as  it 
at  present  extends,  does  not  leave  us  in  serious  doubt 
as  to  their  origin ;  for  there  is  a  very  strong  presump- 
tive evidence  drawn  from  the  results  of  the  most  mod- 
ern scientific  investigation  that  they  are  neither  eternal 
nor  the  products  of  evolution.  No  philosopher  of  re- 
cent times  was  better  acquainted  than  Sir  J.  Herschel 
with  the  interior  mechanism  of  nature.  From  his 
contemplation  of  the  remarkably  constant,  definite, 
and  restricted,  yet  various  and  powerful  interactions 
of  these  elementary  molecules,  he  was  forced  to  the 
conviction  that  they  possessed  all  the  characteristics 
^  .of  manufactured  articles.  The  expression  is  memora- 
ble, accurate,  and  graphic ;  it  may  become  one  of  the 
everlasting  possessions  of  mankind.  Professor  Max- 
well, a  man  whose  mind  has  been  trained  by  the  men- 
tal discipline  of  the  same  noble  university,  arrives  at 
the  same  conclusion ;  but  as  his  knowledge  has  ex- 
ceeded that  of  Herschel  on  this  point,  so  he  goes  fur- 
ther in  the  same  direction  of  thought.  '  No  theory  of 
evolution,'  he  says,  'can  be  formed  to  account  for  the 
similarity  of  the  molecules  throughout  all  time,  and 
throughout  the  whole  region  of  the  stellar  universe,  for 
evolution  necessarily  implies  continuous  change,  and 
the  molecule  is  incapable  of  growth  or  decay,  of  gen- 
eration   or   destruction.'     'None   of  the   processes   of 


APPENDIX.  253 

nature,  since  the  time  when  nature  began,  have  pro- 
duced the  slightest  difference  in  the  properties  of  any 
molecule.  On  the  other  hand,  the  exact  equality  of 
each  molecule  to  all  others  of  the  same  kind  precludes 
the  idea  of  its  being  eternal  and  self-existent.  We 
have  reached  the  utmost  limits  of  our  thinking  facul- 
ties when  we  have  admitted  that,  because  matter  can- 
not be  eternal  and  self-existent,  it  must  have  been 
created.  These  molecules,'  he  adds,  '  continue  this  day 
as  they  were  created,  perfect  in  number  and  measure 
and  weight,  and  from  the  ineffaceable  characters  im- 
pressed on  them  we  may  learn  that  those  aspirations 
after  truth  in  statement  and  justice  in  action,  which  we 
reckon  among  our  noblest  attributes  as  men,  are  ours 
because  they  are  the  essential  constituents  of  the  image 
of  him  who  in  the  beginning  created  not  only  the 
heaven  and  the  earth,  but  the  materials  of  which 
heaven  and  earth  consist.'  And  this,  my  friends,  this 
is  the  true  outcome  of  the  deepest,  the  most  exact,  and 
the  most  recent  science  of  our  age.  A  grander  utter- 
ance has  not  come  from  the  mind  of  a  philosopher  since 
the  days  when  Newton  concluded  his  '  Principia '  by 
his  immortal  scholium  on  the  majestic  personality  of 
the  Creator  and  Lord  of  the  universe." 

After  giving  some  good  advice  to  scientific  men 
as  to  the  study  of  religious  literature,  and  to  theo- 
logians as  to  the  study  of  nature,  he  concludes 
with  the  following  hopeful  views  of  the  present 
state  of  the  subject :  — 

"  There  is  no  need  to  be  frightened  at  the  phantoms 
raised  by  such  terms  as  matter,  and  force,  and  mole- 


254  APPENDIX. 

cules,  and  protoplasmic  energy,  and  rhythmic  vibra- 
tions of  the  brain ;  there  are  no  real  terrors  in  a  philos- 
ophy which  affirms  the  conceivability  that  two  and  two 
might  possibly  make  five ;  or  in  that  which  predicates 
that  an  infinite  number  of  straight  lines  constitute  a 
finite  surface ;  or  in  that  which  denies  all  evidence  of 
a  design  in  nature ;  or  in  that  which  assimilates  the 
motives  which  induce  a  parent  to  support  his  offspring 
to  the  pleasures  derived  from  wine  and  music;  or  in 
that  which  boldly  asserts  the  unknowableness  of  the 
Supreme,  and  the  vanity  of  prayer.  Surely,  philoso- 
phies which  involve  results  such  as  these  have  no  per- 
manent grasp  on  human  nature ;  they  are  in  themselves 
suicidal,  and,  in  their  turn,  and  after  their  brief  day, 
will,  like  other  such  philosophies,  be  refuted  or  denied 
by  the  next  comer,  and  are  doomed  to  accomplish  the 
happy  despatch." 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Addison's  hymn 16 

iEons,  creative 84 

Agassiz  on  derivation     .    .    .  241 

species      ....  135 

Age  of  the  earth 81 

Ahaz,  sun-dial  of 66 

"  Aiones,"  explained  ....  87 

America,  pre-historic  man  in  .  162. 

Animals,  creation  of  ....  119 

Antediluvians 178 

Antiquity  of  the  earth     ...  78 

man    ....  159,  241 

Archaeology 201 

Archebiosis      ; 196 

Aryan  religions 212 

Astronomy  of  the  Bible  ...  64 

Atoms,  doctrine  of  .    .    187, 193,  252 

Atmosphere,  creation  of .    .    .  51 

Augustine  on  creative  days     .  85 

Aurochs 161 

Automatism,  animal  ....  197 

Baal,  worship  of 60 

"Bara" 49 

Bastian  on  archebiosis     ...  197 

Beale  on  protoplasm    ....  198 

Beauty  in  nature 38 

Beginning,  the 49 

"  Bemah,"  explained  ....  114 

Bible  not  to  teach  science    .    .  20 

its   manner  of  treating 

nature 23 

on  law,  order,  etc.  ...  30 

-          on  miracles 33 

on  development ....  35 

teleology  of 37 

on  type  in  nature  ...  40 


PAGE 

Bible,  its  idea  of  heavens     .    .  48 

on  the  atmosphere ...  51 

on  the  starry  heaven      .  63 

on  the  third  heaven    .    .  69 

on  creative  days     ...  84 

on  chaos 91 

its  idea  of  the  earth    .  98, 101 

on  creation  of  animals    .  114 

on  primitive  man  .     .    .  175 

on  immortality  ....  205 

on  ethnic  religions .    .    .  211 

on  superstitious  fears .    .  217 

on  primitive  theology .    .  206 

Birds,  creation  of 116 

Bottles  of  heaven 56 

Brachycephalic  skulls .    .    .    .  158 

Cambrian  age 122 

Carpenter  on  mental  physiology  188 

Chaos,  nature  of 91 

Continents,  origin  of  ...    .  97 
Cranial  characters  of  ancient 

men 167 

Creation  as  related  to  science  .  25 

nature  of 90 

Crust  of  the  earth 97 

Cro-magnon,  cave  of  ...    .  164 

Darwin,  theory  of 139 

Dawkins  on  antiquity  of  man  .  241 

Days,  creative 84 

Deep,  the 91 

Deluge,  the 250 

Derivation,  theories  of    .    .    .  132 
Design,  argument  for      .    .    40, 188 

Development,  in  nature  ...  35 

Dinosaurs 122 

Dolichocephalic  men   ....  158 


256 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Dry  land,  origin  of 97 

Dupont  on  Belgian  caves     .    .  157 

Earth,  the  word  explained  .    .  101 

hung  on  nothing  .    .    .  105 

supported  on  bases    .    .  101 

Eden  of  the  Bible 176 

Elijah's  prayer 60 

Engis,  cave  of 163 

skull  of 171 

Eozoon 120 

animal  nature  of    ...    .  223 

Ether  gods 53 

Euhenierism 215 

Evil  in  nature 29,  35 

Evolution 187 

Expanse,  the 51 

Eye,  origin  of 194 

Female  divinities 215 

Firmament 51 

not  solid 54 

Fishes,  creation  of 122 

Fossil  remains 80 

plants  and  derivation    .  230 

Foundations  of  the  earth     .    .  101 

Fourth  commandment    ...  86 

Geikie  on  antiquity  of  man .     .  245 
General  relations  of  Bible  and 

science 20 

Geology,  its  generalizations  .  79 
compared  with  Bible  88 
tabular  summary  of .  83 
its  order  of  creation  .  88 
its  explanation  of  ori- 
gin of  land  ...  97 
its   testimony    as   to 

first  plants     ...  106 
its  history  of  animal 

life 117 

its   testimony   as   to 

derivation ....  142 
its   testimony   as   to 

origin  of  man  .    .  149 
its   testimony   as   to 

antiquity  of  man  .  159 

Glacial  age 150 

God,  primitive  knowledge  of , .  206 


PAGE 

Guizot,  quoted 14 

"  Hayath,"  explained .     .    .    .  114 

Heavens 47 

classified 50 

atmospheric 51 

third 69 

starry 64 

as  symbol 67 

Herodotus,  quoted 34 

Horse,  ancestry  of 144 

Hunt  on  primeval  chemistry  .  91 

Huxley  on  Engis  skull    ...  171 

on  protoplasm    .    .  128, 197 

Intervention,  divine    ....  42 

Immortality,  belief  in     .    .    .  203 

in  Old  Testament  205 

Isaiah  on  heavens 65 

Job,  xxviii 102 

xxxvi 58 

Joshua's  miracle 66 


Kingsley  on  superstition , 


.    216 


La  Madelaine,  cave  of  .  .  .  170 
Lartet   and  Christy   on   Cro- 

magnon 165 

Laurentian  rocks 120 

Law  in  nature 30,  31 

of  variation 138 

Leaf,  structure  of 108 

Light,  creation  of 44 

and  luminaries      .    .     63, 64 
Lubbock,  referred  to  ...    .    202 

Mammalia,  creation  of    .    .    .    123 

Mammoth  age 156 

Man,  origin  of 152 

antiquity  of  .    .    .     .  159,  241 

Bible  history  of .    ...    176 

Materialistic  science    ....    191 

McCosh  on  types 41 

Mentone,  cave  of 163 

Meteorology  of  the  Bible  ...  53 
Mill,  referred  to  .  .  .  .35,  40, 188 
Milton  on  the  atmosphere  .  .  51 
Mining  described  in  Job.    .    .    102 


INDEX. 


257 


PAGE 

Miracle 66 

Monotheism  as  related  to  sci- 
ence       27 

Miiller,    Max,    on    science   of 

religion 210 

Mythology  not  in  Bible  ...  24 

how  explained  .    .  214 

Nature  as  referred  to  in  Bible  23 

Neanderthal  skull 171 

Neocosniic  men 155 

"  Neolithic "  age 154 

"Nephilim"  ......  178 

Nicholson  on  derivation  .    .    .  225 

"Or,"  name  of  light    ....  63 

Order  in  nature 30 

in  creation 88 

Origin  of  life 113 

Palaeocosmic  men 155 

•'  Palaeolithic  "  age 154 

Pantheism  ....          ...  191 

Palaeontology   and  derivation 

144,  225 

Paul  on  unity  of  God  ....  192 

on  argument  of  design    .  189 

on  germination  of  seed    .  199 

Physical  theories  of  life  .    .     .  126 

Plan  in  nature         30 

Planetary  heaven 64 

Plants,  creation  of 105 

Pleistocene  period  .    .     .    .V  150 

Ponton  on  phases  of  nature     .  72 

Post-glacial  age 151 

Prayer 59,66 

Primordial  age 121 

Pritchard  on  science  and  re- 
ligion    251 

Progress  in  nature 35 

Psalm  viii 65 

xix 18 

civ 57,  102 

Pain,  prayer  for 59 

"  Rakiah,"  explained  ....  51 

Reindeer  age 156 

Reptiles,  creation  of    ...    .  122 

Resurrection,  doctrine  of     .    .  200 


Revelation,  its  sphere .    . 

of  St.  John   . 

Riviere  on  Mentone  cave 

Robing  up  of  heavdh  .     . 

Sabbath,  doctrine  of  .  . 
Sadducees,  characterized 
Sceptical  philosophies  . 
Science  as  distinct  from  ] 

lation 

Science  to  be  free  .  .  . 
Sea,  origin  of  life  in  .  . 
Semitic  religions  .  .  . 
"  Shamayim,"  explained 
"  Sheretz,"  explained  .  . 
Sidereal  heaven  .... 
Species,  questions  as  to  . 
origin  of  .  .  . 
Spencer's  philosophy  .    . 

Spirit  of  God 

Spiritual  heaven  .  .  . 
Strauss  on  origin  of  life  . 
Superstition,  its  origin    . 


PAGE 

21 
67 
163 
55 

87 
185 
186 


9,22 

15 

120 

213 

50 

115 

64 

134 

132 

186 

95 

69 

126 

27,  216 


Table  of  Biblical  and  geological 

periods 76 

Table  of  geological  history  .    .  83 

"  Tannin,"  explained.    ...  115 

Teleology  of  Bible 37 

Tbird  heaven 69 

Turanian  race 158 

religions 212 

Tylor,  referred  to 202 

Tyndall  on  life 129,  193 

Type  in  the  Bible 40 

Unity  in  nature 27 

Use  in  nature 30 

Variation,  laws  of 138 

Vegetation,  the  first    ....  105 

Waters  above  the  heavens  .    .  51 

Weather  gods 53 

Whitley  on  antiquity  of  man  .  249 

Wilson  on  American  skulls.    .  172 

Windows  of  heaven     ....  56 

"  Yom,"  explained 85 


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